


Paris, 1916

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Epistolary [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom!Hannibal, First Kiss, First Time, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mentions of War, Oral Sex, Rimming, World War I, adoration, epistolary timestamp, youthful silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:41:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4950472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They are, each of them, orchids in a wasteland. Torrid violets and shocking greens, ember-bright scarlets and pearlescent whites. Silk and satin and velvet, plaids and paisleys and checks. Colors and patterns that should on any ordinary man clash to the point of causing alarm in others, upon them, expertly chosen, appear anything but ordinary.</i>
</p><p>Hannibal is a student of medicine, studying in Paris, living in Montmartre with his best friends and living the life of a free and beautiful dandy. Will is part of a company of soldiers on leave in Paris for the weekend before they move on.</p><p>Based on the story begun in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4718288">1921</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s too late in the evening to go out, but Hannibal goes out anyway, a scarf wrapped thrice around his neck and still hanging down to his thighs, bright blood orange and sunshine yellow in coiling paisley patterns.

He makes his way through Montmartre, wide strides and wider grins to those who greet him, familiar with his silhouette and good humor. He swings his scarf back over his shoulder once more so it hangs at the front and back, and enters the nearest, and rowdiest, bar.

The British had come through the night before, immediately falling happily into the Bohemian life that certain parts of Paris offer with open arms. Soldiers and their horses, equipment bags and guns piled around the places they have been offered to stay on leave. No one judges, here, not at this time when one day could be the last day and this day could not exist.

Hannibal is greeted with laughter and a roar of voices as his friends wave him over to their usual table. Soldiers dot the bar, mingle in the swarm of people between the tables, call in their foreign language to one another, to men and women all over. Some answer, some just laugh and wave them over anyway.

Hannibal makes his way to the bar and leans over it to grab a bottle of whatever his fingers catch at first. He calls friendly towards the barman and takes the bottle when the man sees. Then he goes to his friends.

“ _My God_!” Anthony declares, inching over pale blue velvet worn through to near transparency. “ _Another weekend of this and we’ll have to leave. There’s no other way_.”

“ _Leave Montmartre_?” Tobias asks, as Hannibal settles in beneath Anthony’s uplifted arm. They share a swift kiss, cheek to cheek, and Tobias receives the same greeting before Anthony snorts.

“ _At the very least_ ,” he answers. “ _Paris altogether, I think, it’s done for at this rate. Perhaps we will forgo the whole of France_.”

“ _I hear the Rhineland is excellent this time of year_ ,” muses Hannibal. He grimaces at Anthony’s sharp finger worked into his ribs and takes the opportunity to pluck his cigarette free from elegant fingers gloved in delicate silk.

They are, each of them, orchids in a wasteland. Torrid violets and shocking greens, ember-bright scarlets and pearlescent whites. Silk and satin and velvet, plaids and paisleys and checks. Colors and patterns that should on any ordinary man clash to the point of causing alarm in others, upon them, expertly chosen, appear anything but ordinary.

A burst of loud and decidedly masculine laughter from further in the bar forces Anthony to close his eyes, fingers spread.

“ _Greece_ ,” he decides. “ _Surely the birthplace of civilization has something to offer us_.”

“ _Franklyn_ ,” Hannibal reminds him, and all three fall to a fit of giggles, their friend not with them this evening, having forgone this particular bar to seek out those soldiers farther down near the _civilized_ part of the city. _“Greece offered us Franklyn. If what Greece gives us is more of him I would rather stay in Montmartre.”_

“ _Hear hear_.” Tobias reaches for the bottle and pulls the cork free. Hannibal did not bother to get glasses and in truth they hardly need them. They share each other enough that far more curious things have been in their mouths than a bottle sucked by another. He takes the first sip and passes it to Anthony, turning to survey the bar as the young man stretches his long legs beneath the table and almost under the one next to them.

“ _But it’s become overrun_ ,” Anthony complains, voice a little strained from the alcohol as he makes sure Hannibal has the bottle in hand before letting it go. “ _Look at them. Terrible, rowdy, mannerless things. Look at their hair_.”

“ _We’re at war, Anthony_.”

“ _Apparently so. With a lack of fashion sense_.”

“ _With Germany, you idiot_.”

“ _I fear them less than those uniforms right now_ ,” Anthony sighs, bringing a hand to his eyes as though it simply is too much. Tobias just snorts, raises an eyebrow to Hannibal who shrugs, settling in against their long-suffering friend and nuzzling behind his ear.

“ _Surely they’re not all bad_.”

“ _One_ ,” Anthony sighs. “ _Name one that is not that bad, Hannibal. Just one_.”

Hannibal draws his lips between his teeth, sucking the sweetness of champagne from them, and finally sighs. “ _I suppose I shall have to make all their acquaintances first and report back_.”

“ _You absolute trollop_ ,” Anthony whispers, aghast. “ _You like them_.”

Tobias, too, lifts a brow high at Hannibal as the bottle is passed back to him. Hannibal merely shrugs, and in doing, settles into a comfortable slouch against Anthony, toying absently with his scarf. Slowly, his eyes narrow, perverse pleasure overcoming him.

“ _Clean-cut_ ,” he says. “ _Ostensibly brave. Prim and well-mannered -_ ”

“ _You are delusional_ ,” Tobias interjects. “ _The volume alone is terrible, let alone their carrying on about our whores_.”

“ _Their exuberance now is but a reaction against the restrained nature of their upbringing_ ,” reasons Hannibal. “ _The English are painfully polite, and the expectations of gentility are a bondage from which they all - on foreign soil - seek freedom_.”

Anthony squints, snatching back the bottle enough to slosh it bubbling to the table. “ _Do you hear what I hear, Tobias_?”

“ _Particular words_ ,” he agrees.

“ _Of bondage and restraints_ ,” grins Anthony, suddenly. “ _You like their uniforms and those little leather straps on them. They are not stoic and somber, they are tedious, Hannibal, you would fall asleep beneath them before they finished with you_.”

The door beside them swings wide with a rush of hot summer air. Hannibal draws a breath to defend himself before an English voice overtakes his own. Three soldiers enter together, mid-banter.

“What did Crawford tell us?”

“No gambling.”

“And?”

“No brothels.”

“It was more specific than that,” Graham interjects. “We’re not to come back with any infectious diseases. Never mind that we’ll catch worse from the trenches.”

“I suppose the brothels have trenches of their own,” answers Zeller, as Price shoots him a grin and they continue onward.

“ _Ghastly_ ,” whispers Anthony.

Tobias shrugs, stretching back to grasp for the bottle that Hannibal holds out of his reach. “ _The trenches are filthy things. So glad, my friends, day by day, that we have not been drafted due to our education and the importance for us to finish it._ ”

“ _Amen_ ,” Anthony mumbles, turning to press his nose against Hannibal’s neck, frowning when he doesn’t immediately stroke his hair. He nuzzles closer, and still Hannibal does not respond. When Anthony sits back to look at him, Hannibal’s eyes are in the middle distance, looking far over the bar to where the three soldiers who just passed have settled.

“ _Oh no_ ,” Anthony groans. “ _No, Hannibal, no, please not them, they’re dirty_.”

“ _They’re far from it_ ,” Hannibal exclaims, gesturing to them. “ _Two are hardly unpleasant and that one -_ ”

“ _That one._ ”

“ _That one_ ,” Hannibal confirms. “ _That one is perfect_.”

“ _Oh dear_ ,” sighs Tobias, shifting with seemingly great and put-upon pain to turn himself and look. He blinks and turns back, brows raised. “ _He is very pretty, Anthony_.”

“ _You_ ,” responds the poet, pointing with the bottle. “ _You are a traitor_.”

With a kiss into the air towards him, Tobias ignores the accusation in favor of asking what old woman Anthony accosted for such a garish stretch of cloth around his neck. To this Anthony takes grave offense, and for a moment Hannibal allows their voices to join the others buzzing in the little bar. The young man he watches instead carries himself straight-shouldered and tall, but without the airs of butch bravado that so many of his cohorts do. His dark hair is cut short but bends in little curls with what length is allowed to him. Glasses rest on his nose, flashing in the low lights when he turns, but past them are the bluest eyes Hannibal has ever seen. Just as he sets his teeth against his lower lip and tries to recall the exact shade of blue, settling somewhere between cornflower and Maya, they turn towards him again.

They hold.

Will wonders distantly if a shell has not burst upon the ground at some near-but-not-too-near distance. The ground seems to waver as if impacted beneath his feet, the sound around him turned to a hum in his ears. Watching him with wide almond eyes, dark as chocolate, and with a smile spread across pale lips shaped to a perfect Cupid’s bow, is the most extraordinary man that Will has ever seen. Long fingers lift to sweep a drape of honeyed hair from his face before settling to the shocking scarf around his throat, and Will has only time to force air into his lungs before his name jars him back to attention.

“You with us?” Zeller asks.

“We’re going to try absinthe,” Price adds. “You’re in, aren’t you? You’d better be for what it costs.”

“Yes,” Graham agrees, managing a smile despite the sudden shell-shock that’s overcome him. “Yes, I’ll try it.”

“Good man.”

After that, Will’s hearing goes a little fuzzy and he truly doesn’t care what his friends are saying. He just watches, the way the dark eyes narrow, the way that proud chin lifts and the young man next to him turns to nuzzle against it. Will’s entire body falls to tremors, hot and cold all at once and he knows, he knows immediately that he _wants_. He wants _him_.

A moment, more, maybe an eternity before Will blinks and realizes his lips are parted and his breath is held. The world around him seems too loud, and yet the man is still watching him, a small smile tilted against his lips, fingers now caressing slowly against the young man’s hair as Will imagines he would his own.

God. 

He imagines so much more than that.

Without thought of propriety or reputation, Will ducks his head in a nod, tilts it towards the door, and to his surprise, genuine and warm, the blonde bites his lip, delighted, and with a minute nod of his own, gently tugs the hair of his friend and extricates himself from grasping limbs and too many people to go to the door.

“Get that in ya,” Price says, setting a shotglass of shockingly violent green _something_ before Will.

Will’s cheeks burn hot enough that he sets his knuckles against them to cool away the torrid blush that comes at his companion’s words. A laugh, too high and too loud, nearly betrays him before he washes away the sound with a pull of the drink that burns bitter on his tongue. Grimacing, Will sucks his lips clean as if it might somehow ease the taste, nose wrinkling.

“Good god, it’s terrible.”

“It’s traditional,” Price corrects him. “Anise and herbs -”

“And alcohol,” interjects Zeller. “A lot of it. And -”

“Wormwood,” Price adds, leaning in to whisper, conspiratorial. “That’s what makes you see the green fairy.”

“Isn’t it a poison?” Will asks, watching dismayed as his glass is refilled again. There is a hold up by the door that pulls his attention away from the explanation that his too-clever company-men give him. His beautiful blonde - and Will delights in realizing he already thinks of him as such, as if by imagining it he can make it reality - is ensnared by his own friend’s hands around his wrists and a narrowed gaze.

“ _Where on Earth do you imagine you’re going_ ,” Anthony scolds him, pressing his lips together into a pout.

“ _Hopefully into the bed of a very fine English gentleman_ ,” Hannibal says, smiling around the lip he presses between his teeth again. “ _I did promise to do some clinical research into their dispositions and prove you wrong regarding at least one of them. I’m a scientist, Anthony, I need to test my theories_.”

“ _You’re hopeless_ ,” Anthony replies, brow furrowed further.

“ _Coming from a poet_?” Hannibal replies, smiling warm, and leaning in to give Anthony another quick kiss against his lips, just in reassurance. “ _Fear not for me, dearest, I will be safe as can be with a soldier. You’ll see me tomorrow_.”

“ _Alone, I hope_.”

“ _Are you jealous_?”

“ _I merely worry about what’s gotten into that gorgeous head of yours seeing so many new men parade before you in the most ridiculous clothing. You don’t even speak English_.”

“ _Do I need to speak English_?”

Anthony tilts his head at him. “ _Do you presume to gesture your way into bed with someone_?”

“ _I don’t woo, Anthony, you do. I explore_.”

A frown, altogether genuine, curls Anthony’s lips as he finally lets his fingers slide free from Hannibal’s wrists. “ _You’re dressed far too exquisitely to explore the trenches_ ,” he sniffs. “ _I hope that his dour grey mud sticks to your clothing and never comes out_.”

With a sigh, Hannibal draws himself up straight, palms against his clothing, and declares solemnly, “ _Then I shall have to go bare_.”

Tobias laughs loud, failing to hide it behind his fist as Anthony shoots him a narrow look, and without looking back to the soldier, Hannibal turns to go on faith alone. The night air blasts against him like heat from an open oven. In truth, he realizes, stepping onto the crooked, narrow streets of Montmartre, there are any number of things that could go wrong. A look misread, that finds him standing alone to doubtless gales of laughter when his friends find him hours later. A brasher man than the one he thought he saw in those skyfull blue eyes, who will just as soon do him harm as kiss him when his propriety gets the better of him and raises his fists.

Hannibal does not go far, only around the corner - far enough to hear his friends coming should they seek after him, far enough that if that soldier emerges with spite in his eyes, Hannibal has room to act. With his back against the wall of the bar, gaze tilted past the corner, he holds his breath and waits.

“No more,” Will declares, earning laughter for the pained constriction of his expression. Already the room spins with sound and movement and the heady drink that weights his limbs. He manages to turn his attention long enough to the corner, tracking slowly but finding it now only party to two, one of whom - in fine frockery - is giving him a particularly dour look.

That says enough in itself.

“One more,” insists Zeller. “We’re on leave, what else are you going to do?”

Will raises his hands in submission and takes a step back, shaking his head. “Something else. Anything else.”

“Someone else,” Price smirks, laughing when Will shrugs in innocence.

“We are, after all, on leave,” Will says, and with boos at his back from his companions, he turns to go.

France in summer is similar to England in summer. It’s muggy and hot, too hot, even with evening fallen hours before. And what’s worse, is that Will doesn’t know the city, he knows only the path to take back to the hostel they have been rented to sleep in. He looks to the sky, clear and bright with stars as one would never see in London, and then he looks to the street, empty of people, and more importantly empty of the man he had seen in the bar.

Of course.

He probably went home. He probably went to another bar. He probably went around back in this one and will enter in as Will leaves it to the laughing cheers of his friends. Why would this be any different in France than in England? And with someone so beautiful, so genuinely and startlingly unusual?

Of course not.

Will sighs, makes his way to the side of the building to have a cigarette, at least, before he returns to the bar, pretending that was all he was going to do. He ducks his head, lighter clicking, but his lapels are grabbed hard and he is pulled into the alleyway.

“Wait -”

But then his breath leaves him. Or, in truth, it is stolen, by warm lips that still tingle with bubbles from the champagne, warm breath that fans out against Will’s face. When the man pulls back his eyes are barely open and he looks at Will and smiles.Will sinks into the heavy-lidded gaze of starless night that meets his own. So near their noses touch, Will swallows hard enough for his throat to click, and manages an unsteady smile.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” he says, smile widening to a grin as amusement narrows of the eyes of the beautiful creature pressed so close against him.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” agrees Hannibal. He doesn’t bother with daintily correcting it to a _bonsoir_ \- he can hardly bother with breathing at all when the soldier sets a hand to his cheek, cigarette held between his fingers. His lips part against calloused skin that smells of soap and grease, and they spread when the Englishman leans in to kiss him again, across the little alley ensconced in shadow, and presses him to the wall. His knees weaken and Will holds tighter, pushing him upright and drinking down the glorious sound that carries sweet as any music from the Parisian’s throat. Slender fingers wrap around his wrists, holding tight, and when Will tears their lips apart it is only enough to draw a shuddering breath, their brows touching.

“I swore a bomb went off,” Will whispers, “the moment that I saw you. I couldn’t understand how no one else had felt it, no one else reacted to feeling the very Earth move beneath us.”

Hannibal shakes his head, just incrementally, and grins wider. The soldier natters on, his coarse language and beautiful accent pulling at something within Hannibal that makes him shiver. He is already hard as hell, just from the play of this, unexpected kisses and being pushed to the wall by a stranger. A beautiful stranger.

Hannibal reaches to press his lips to the soldier’s fingers, taking the filter of the little cigarette between his lips to take a drag, watching, delighted, as the soldier’s eyes widen, as his jaw slackens and he says something else that is clearly a curse.

“ _Come home with me_ ,” Hannibal murmurs, watching the soldier shiver, laugh, bring the cigarette to his lips again before flicking it away. Hannibal swallows. It is such a decisive gesture, dominant and lovely. “ _Come home with me and take me against any surface you can fucking find._ ”

Despite being stationed there, despite attending back in Blighty a very good school, Will doesn’t speak more French than ‘hello’, ‘thank you’, and ‘please’, the latter typically accompanied by a motion for a bottle. But what he doesn’t understand of the invitation is illuminated when the young man he holds gently to the wall rocks his hips forward. A firm ridge strokes against his hip, needy and insistent, and Will muffles a low sound against Hannibal’s neck.

He swallows again, and nods, mouth tracing the expensive scarf that catches soft against his lips. Hannibal grins, and with a warm curl of fingers through Will’s hair, he tugs him back to free himself. Turning with a flourish he leads the soldier who willingly follows, listening to the lilt of his unfamiliar words.

“Are you near here?” Will asks, setting a hand to his mouth as if to trap the heat of Hannibal’s kiss there. A glance across Hannibal’s shoulder reveals a lifted brow, and Will laughs, smile spreading wide enough to narrow his eyes. “You’ve no idea what I’m saying, do you?”

Hannibal shrugs, smile wider, and reaches to take Will’s hand with his own to lead him home. He isn’t far, in fact, several streets and a rise away, and he thinks, amused, how scandalized Anthony will be the next morning seeing Will meander, sleepy and hungover, into the kitchen. They don't talk on the way back, just occasionally press against another wall, mouths hot together and breaths and laughter mingling, until they are scared off like cats on a fence, Hannibal laughing bright at the threats that follow them.

By the time they reach the little house, neither can keep their hands to themselves. Hannibal fumbles with the lock as Will ruts against him, breathing more of his silly foreign words against Hannibal’s neck. Finally the key turns and they nearly fall in, in their enthusiasm, giggling and giddy, kissing each other as Hannibal walks Will backward towards the stairs and then turns to walk up stairs first.

Will clutches the banister as he goes, its polish dulled from years of use to reveal the pale wood beneath. The steps creak beneath him, a quick glance taking in the little home, rickety as it is. Age intersperses with splendor, luxurious fabrics tossed against a frayed old sofa, a painting of hyacinths in a gilded frame upon a wall with peeling, faded floral paper. A rich, resinous scent lingers in the air, mingling with rose perfume and old wine, and altogether renders Will’s reason to a drunken bliss, intoxicating him beyond what the absinthe and Hannibal have not already.

At the top of the stairs, Hannibal clucks his tongue, one arm draped across the doorframe and long fingers picking at the peeling paint. Will watches him a moment more, the way the light from the streetlamps outside illuminates the curve of his mouth and the contours of his cheek, and then follows with boots thudding against the old wood.

Hannibal speaks to him in French and Will regards him with amusement, shaking his head. A question yields another shake of his head, and just as Hannibal’s mouth bends to a pout and a _tsk_ of disapproval, Will snares him close, hands against his cheeks. He kisses away the French, the gentle scolding, he kisses Hannibal and turns him to the wall beside the door, snaring a hand beneath his thigh to lift their hips flush together.

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispers, before his words too are stolen from him in a tangle of tongues, and he gladly relinquishes them. Hannibal moans, low and long, and obediently curls his thigh up higher against Will’s hip. It is rare that someone manhandles him, perhaps because he carries such an air of authority until you get him in the bedroom, and Hannibal is all too delighted to be held now, as Will slips a hand beneath his other thigh and hoists him higher, off the floor.

“ _Remarkable boy_ ,” Hannibal breathes, framing Will’s face in his hands and kissing him deeper still, devouring him as surely as he allows himself to be devoured. “ _God I am going to ache tomorrow_ ,” he adds, laughing, watching as the Englishman laughs too, not understanding all but understanding enough.

Hannibal bucks up against him, nods towards the tiny bed in his attic room, made neatly for the moment. Will glances toward it, eyes narrowed when he turns back to Hannibal instead, and presses him harder to the wall. One arm beneath his ass, stroking his cock between Hannibal’s legs with the friction from his curling hips, Will lifts his free hand to tug slowly free the scarf from around Hannibal’s neck. Hannibal shivers, coiling tighter around the soldier, as silk whispers against his skin.

“Is there something you want?” Will asks, delighted as Hannibal squirms against him.

“ _Take me to bed_ ,” Hannibal demands, and Will’s grin widens.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he murmurs. Finally baring Hannibal’s neck, Will tucks his head near to suck a hot kiss against pale skin.

Hannibal sinks groaning against him, squeezing his legs to ride up again. He points to the bed, laughing helpless. “ _Bed_ ,” he insists again. “ _Take me to bed and ravish me, you horrible man_.”

Will glances again to the bed, and feigns confusion, scarcely able to restrain a mischievous grin. “I like you here,” he whispers, the throaty purr enough for Hannibal to snare his hair and kiss him hard. Strong shoulders shove himself forward and Will staggers back, laughing loud as he carries Hannibal against him until the bed comes up behind his knees and they fall back together, rutting rough strokes against the other.You would think taking orders would be ingrained in you,” Hannibal laughs against him, fumbling with Will's pants, uncaring if they end up spent and messy half-clothed after. “ _You're supposed to be in the goddamn army_.”

Will laughs again, a hand up against his face. This is ridiculous. Neither understand the other, both rutting like the teenagers they are barely not anymore with a stranger they met - not even met, saw - in a bar less than an hour ago. It is thrilling, utterly thrilling. Will's pants are undone and yanked unceremoniously open, his briefs hardly a barrier for Hannibal's seeking, practiced hands, and Will curses as a warm smooth hand circles him, entirely shameless, and strokes. Hannibal watches, delighted by the tremors that run through the soldier, the squirming that has him less getting away and more shifting to bare himself further. Wanton, beautiful thing, and yet it is immediately clear to Hannibal that though he could hold him down and make him sob with a tongue shoved as far up his ass as he could get it, this is not a man who would bend for him.

More’s the better.

“ _Yes, I’ll remember this for days_ ,” he purrs, bending to suck a mirroring mark against Will’s throat that Will had left on him. “ _You’re big_.”

Will finds his strength wonderfully wavering. The exquisite creature coiling around him as if to consume him, with talented hands and unholy mouth, is like nothing Will has ever known before. This is no drunken rubbing with one of his college peers, no quick tug or cock shoved between trembling thighs that both erase from memory no sooner than they spill their seed. This is so much more, sparking his senses as if with jolts of electricity every time they move together. It is everything that Will has ever wanted and never once allowed himself to imagine he might have.

This boy, this extraordinary boy, is everything.

He fists a hand in Hannibal’s hair, sleek strands soft as he parts them, and grips hard enough to hear him moan, keeping Hannibal’s mouth pressed against his throat. Hannibal moves for him, twisting his body in lithe, sinuous motions to rub himself against Will’s hip as he strokes in time. Bending him back enough to bring their mouths together, Will pushes him to the bed from which he seems to elevate in his movements, and pulls Hannibal’s hand free from his trousers.

“ _Let me_ ,” Hannibal murmurs, begging with his body when he knows his words are not understood. “ _If I don’t have you in my mouth, I’ll scream_.”

“Hush,” answers Will, kissing the fussy noises away as he pins Hannibal’s wrists each in turn beneath his hand and holds him still. With a near-predatory patience, Will pushes Hannibal’s velvet jacket aside and begins to open the buttons of his waistcoat, one by one. His plumage is absurd and striking, but Will makes his intentions known as inch by inch, he bares Hannibal’s chest beneath him, and pushes a work-rough hand through the thick swath of hair he finds beneath.

“ _You tease_ ,” Hannibal hisses, teeth bared in an ecstatic grin, eyes almost closed. “ _You unconscionable tease_...”

“Christ, look at you,” Will breathes back, sure that neither of them are holding a conversation so much as a strangely mangled monologue. He tugs lightly against the hair and Hannibal’s voice pulls loud and high as he arches his neck, ducks his head back and bites his lip hard. “You’re pretty loud aren’t you? Hell, you’ll wake the whole street up.”

Hannibal makes another needy pleading sound as Will bares his chest entirely, fingers rough against Hannibal’s skin in a way that is so pleasant he can barely breathe. The soldier is beautiful, with his barely-curled hair and his exotic eyes and his brilliant crooked smile. Hannibal is entirely enamoured. Entirely. He wonders - since they surely won’t last for an actual fuck this evening - if he can convince him to stay, tomorrow. Just a night more. To get his time’s worth of Paris, as it were.

He arches softly and wriggles to free himself from his sleeves to discard the clothes to the floor.

“ _Messy thing_ ,” Hannibal breathes. “ _Terrible_.”

Freed from Will’s grasp, Hannibal sets quick fingers to Will’s uniform. The buttons are quickly undone and he snares the leather straps across the front to drag him into another kiss. Messy, lips smearing together in a tangle, Will makes a little helpless sound into the kiss as his mouth is claimed and it’s so dainty, so entirely polite, that Hannibal can’t keep him held in it for the laugh that bubbles from deep inside.

“Never in my life,” Will murmurs, working off his belt and straps and tossing the whole kit to the floor, buckles clattering. “Never have I imagined anyone like you. God, I could just watch you -”

He stops, chest still heaving to catch his breath, and watches as Hannibal traces the name on his lapel.

“Graham?” he asks, and Will bites his bottom lip to keep back his moan, dragged out shameless in hearing his name purred with such heat.

“Will,” he manages, before quickly shrugging out of his coat. He reaches for his tie but Hannibal takes it from him, winding it around his wrist to drag him down again. “William Graham.”

Dark eyes watch blue, hooded and dark with pupil both, and Hannibal sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, so close that Will can feel the motion just against his own.

“Hannibal,” he replies, and Will blinks, taking in this information, this unusual name that is certainly not French, the man before him that he now knows just a little more of.

“Hannibal,” Will repeats, and Hannibal kisses the taste of his name from him.

They work harder at getting bare, tangling in each other’s clothes, laughing when they do. Pants and socks and boots and handsome shoes find their way into a messy pile on the floor until they press together, blissfully naked in the heat, Hannibal’s back to the mattress and strong arms around Will to hold him close.

Sliding the lengths of their bodies firmly together, cocks caught between their stomachs, shivering them both when they brush together, Will holds himself up with one hand and with the other explores. Thick chest hair that coils softly back into place when he tugs it straight, dark little nipples that stiffen beneath the barest brush of fingertips. Wide slender shoulders and sleek arms that hold him firm, and a swanlike curve to his pale throat as Hannibal arches back into the pillow to bare it.

Will grasps his jaw and turns his head aside, draping hot kisses against Hannibal’s jaw, sucking firm enough against the delicate skin beneath to hear him whimper. Hannibal keeps his head turned, willingly obedient to Will’s delicious roughness, and shivers as Will instead slides his hand between them to stroke them together.

A moan breaks from Will before he can stop it, breath a rush against Hannibal’s ear.

“I know you don’t understand,” he murmurs, as Hannibal shivers beneath. “But if I don’t tell you right now, right this instant that you are even more beautiful bare than you were in your clothes, I couldn’t live with myself. Spread for me, will you?” Will begs, releasing their lengths to instead grasp Hannibal’s ass. “Please, God, I want to have you.”

Hannibal curses, digs his nails harder into Will’s back. He spreads his legs wide, wanton and uncaring, before changing his mind and squirming to get onto his knees instead. He arches, a beautiful bend in his back, and stretches forward with a groan, legs spread around Will, hips up as Hannibal slips his fingers through the peeling headboard and holds on, turning over his shoulder to give Will a narrow-eyed challenge. Will tries to swallow. He tries to breathe. Instead the sound just chokes in his throat, a polite and startled little sound that Hannibal relishes entirely, grinning. All the grudging comfort that Will had found in his own accepted repression falls away at once, so suddenly distant that he wonders how he ever could have lived without this. He spreads his hands reverent up Hannibal’s thighs, down again with his fingers curved, nails still dark beneath with the remnants of oil and dirt from the front.

It feels sinful, deliciously wrong, to press his hands to ivory skin so soft it’s as if Hannibal were made of satin. The dark hair on his legs only fascinates Will further, an exquisite masculinity as ballast to the dandy displayed before him. He cups his hand against Hannibal’s balls, a gentle tug enough to bow Hannibal’s head to the bed with a moan. Curling his hand around his cock he milks it downward and breathes only a little _oh_ as Hannibal pushes his hips higher, then rounds them, fucking slowly into Will’s fist.

He kneels closer, his own legs spreading Hannibal’s heels further apart, and releases him only long enough to grasp his ass with both hands and spread him wide. A long groan spills warmth across his opening, delicate skin wrinkled and pink and wonderful, before Will closes his mouth around him and sucks a hard kiss against his hole.

Hannibal shudders, his entire body going taut and relaxing in waves of pleasure so strong he can barely hold himself still. His fingers flex and hold against the curling metal of the headboard, paint chipping off when he turns his fingers too much or grasps too harshly. And in truth, how could he not? With such an exquisite feeling between his legs, knowing that that beautiful soldier is on his knees behind him eating his ass.

Christ.

Hannibal moans and muffles several eloquently chosen curses into the pillow before calling Will’s name, helpless and shivering. Will’s lips - flushed pink and slick with spit - part from him with a groan as he nuzzles Hannibal’s plush backside and sinks kisses against it. “Again,” he begs. “God, say it again.” Hannibal’s moan is sweet enough, the push that tempts Will to lick him again sweeter still, but Will can only grin, drunk and enamored. He teases a chaste little kiss against Hannibal’s opening and asks, “Again, Hannibal.”

The French comes in a sultry and sullen rush of words, and Will sucks a hard kiss against him before drawing up to his knees and laying heavy across Hannibal’s back before the shudder has even passed. Palm spreading over Hannibal’s bottom, he curls his nails, and then spanks, once, watching wide-eyed to see the response. His moan is higher pitched, though just as helpless. Hannibal ducks his head further to pant into the sheets with soft little sounds, tensing entirely before relaxing again, the exhale driving his muscles to languid softness as he shoves back, begging for more, purring Will’s name again.

“Hell,” Will sighs, delighted, astounded, so aroused by this. “Never thought my name could sound so good, it’s so bloody common.”

Hannibal shivers again, just a soft tremor through strong shoulders, and Will hesitates just a moment before spanking him again, a third time, laughing as he presses his forehead between Hannibal’s shoulders and whispers soft things against him. Hannibal just rests, eyes wide where Will can’t see, lips parted. It’s rare, it’s very rare that someone plays with him this way and he delights in it, illicit and debauched and wrong as it is.

He thinks of de Sade.

He bites his lip and closes his eyes and doesn’t think of de Sade, and instead thinks of the gorgeous young thing behind him, with the lips of an angel and the tongue of something much more wicked.

“ _Anything_ ,” he whispers. “ _Anything, Will, fingers, your tongue, your cock, fuck, all of it. Everything, please._ ”

“Naughty,” murmurs Will, with no idea what Hannibal is saying to him beyond his name and the delicious plea that curls his words. It is a frustration, and entirely delightful, to not know a word beyond his name of what Hannibal asks of him, but he cottons on to the request the moment his fingers press between Hannibal’s cheeks, still slick with spit, and rub against him.

Hannibal shoves his hips high and moans so loud that Will is certain his voice can be heard from the street, wanton and wonderful. Will kisses between his shoulders, reaching forward to slip Hannibal’s hair from his face and pull it tight into his fist. He grasps his cock, with a swift spit into his palm, and presses it against him.

“ _Oui_?” Will asks, sweat beading on his brow and glazing their bodies glistening in the lights from the street beneath. “Tell me you want it, Hannibal. Let me hear you, beautiful.”

“ _I swear to God if you don’t do something now I will tease you tomorrow morning until you scream, Will, please_!”

Will takes that as acquiescence enough.

The push is deliberate but not cruel, a steady pressure as Hannibal adjusts, shifts his legs wider, relaxes his muscles further, tenses them again, taking Will in. He should worry more, that perhaps the soldier is filthy in more ways than his teasing, that perhaps he will find himself robbed blind and killed by morning… he should worry more, and yet Hannibal doesn’t, not at all. He can feel the panting breaths of Will against his back as the young man works himself into Hannibal deeper and deeper, he can hear the way his voice breaks, the adoration that rides on it when he says Hannibal’s name…

He will not regret this in the morning.

He doubts he will ever regret this.

Will has heard so many stories about Paris. About the plagues that his companymen bring home between their legs, the itching and the shots involved. Terrible stories of being held at knife-point by previously agreeable partners and having their wallets raided, sent out near-bare into the streets to explain themselves to their higher-ups. Will had no intentions of this sort of recreation while he was here, and doubted further that he would ever find the particular kind of company he was truly seeking.

He was wrong.

God, was he ever wrong.

The bedframe rattles and the springs shriek as Will juts his hips forward and Hannibal’s moan spills against the pillow. He reaches forward to wrap his hand over the top of Hannibal’s own, clutching white-knuckled to the iron headboard. Worshipping kisses across the back of his neck, into his hair, Will moans when a shiver tightens Hannibal around him.

He whispers Hannibal’s name like a prayer as he withdraws, and shoves hard into him again.

Hannibal has lost count the number of times he has fucked or been fucked. Paris and his particular group of friends notorious in their joy of experimentation and sharing. But Hannibal can only count on his fingers the number of times he has had a _good_ fuck, one that filled him entirely, electrified his entire body to tension and pleasure, hit there, just _there_ within him, a place that had his eyes rolling and his voice pulling. Will is a fantastically rough lover, taking and giving all at once, harsh and quick, deep, enough that Hannibal almost wonders if he understood him, truly, when Hannibal begged to feel him for days. Perhaps he had. Or perhaps they don’t need spoken language when this is enough.

Hannibal’s voice rings shameless from him, through the small window cracked open leading to the roof, through the door they had closed but not locked behind them. He is in ecstasy, dripping to the satin sheets beneath them both as Will continues to take him, claim him, and Hannibal whispers that he wants no one else, no one else ever again besides Will.

“God,” Will breathes, sweet voice roughened raw. He squeezes Hannibal’s hand and buries himself to the hilt, before working shorter thrusts over the spot inside him that he can feel against his cock, and that makes Hannibal’s voice pitch higher. “Keep talking,” he begs. “You beauty, let me hear you.”

The sensation curls Hannibal’s toes and pulls his muscles trembling. The bed rattles from the forceful fucking, from the shaking of his own grip against flaking painted iron. Will bites his lip but it does nothing to restrain the aching sound that shudders from him. He drops his free hand from Hannibal’s hip, red crescents left in the wake of his grip, and takes Hannibal’s cock in his fist, squeezing hard and stroking in time with his own stabbing cock.

Hannibal lifts a foot, tries to draw up his knee but finds himself fucked flat into the mattress beneath the soldier atop him. He turns his head enough to see the shadow of movement against his back, and Will’s voice bends suddenly high before dropping low as the heat and pressure of his body is too much to bear.

Too soon, all too soon, he stiffens and spills, gasping like a drowning man as he fills Hannibal beneath him.

“Don’t -” Will begs, cock twitching in hot, wet bursts inside the man beneath him. “Don’t - yet - let me -”

Hannibal exhales hard and holds, one hand slipping to the bed and squeezing the sheets so hard his knuckles go white. He doesn’t know _what_ Will is saying, but his tone is enough, the plea within it clear. Hold. Hold on. Just a little more.

Just a little more.

Hannibal swears, whimpers, helpless and so, so close, Will’s cock still pulsing in him, Will’s hand curled rough around the head of Hannibal’s. It feels so good, so damn good, and Hannibal doesn’t think, for a moment, about how he does not woo, does not think about how within days this man will be moving on with his company into a war no one knows the outcome of. He does not think of how little time they have together, because they have this, now, and it’s eternity in a moment.

“ _Please, Will,_ ” he whispers.

Will praises him with kisses, scattered warm against his shoulders. Down his spine like spring rain, as Will slowly slips free of the blissful confinement of Hannibal’s body. Lower, across the swell of his backside still scarlet with Will’s handprint. Bent to his knees, Will ducks his head and takes Hannibal’s cock between his lips, sucking firm.

The flurry of French curses, muffled into the pillow, is a sound that Will is certain he will never in this life or any other forget. Hannibal’s cock leaks against his tongue, rich with the salt and sweat of his body, and Will nuzzles beneath his balls to take Hannibal to the back of his mouth. Suckling firm, obscene wet sounds slurped between Hannibal’s legs, Will curls his tongue around Hannibal’s thick member stiffened between his lips. Hannibal comes quickly, unable to hold himself back when that talented mouth is on him again. He shudders and bites the pillow, less to stifle the sounds, he could care less who hears him, and more to press against _something_ , feel resistance _somewhere_ as Will takes him apart.

It is bliss. It is blinding. When Hannibal trembles himself complete, he slowly uncurls his fingers from the headboard, flicking away the flakes of paint that cling to him, and reaches back to coax Will back up to him again. His lips are puffed red, swollen from kissing and sucking and whispering such beautiful and filthy things, and Hannibal cannot get enough of him. He presses a fingertip to Will’s lips, another, gently splaying them before he leans in and replaces them with his own lips instead. A soft kiss, intimate and gentle, as he lets his eyes close and pours silent gratitude to the soldier before him.

“ _I don’t think I want to let you go_ ,” Hannibal admits softly.

Will draws a breath when Hannibal pulls nearer to him, allowing himself to be held in strong but slender arms. They are soaked in sweat, dizzy from drunkenness and their exquisite exertions, but Will too inches closer when Hannibal’s soft voice whispers against his throat. He presses his leg between Hannibal’s own to tangle them, and lets his arm come to rest over Hannibal’s back.

“I expected you to toss me out,” murmurs Will, lips brushing Hannibal’s brow before he sets his chin atop his head and lets him nuzzle near. His tongue still tickles with the hot release spilled across it, lips numb from sucking, heart slowing in staggering beats. “I’m glad you’re not,” he adds, a smile warming his words.

“ _Please don’t_ ,” Hannibal asks. Will’s voice is so tender, so strangely apologetic, that Hannibal can imagine no more translation of his words than that he’s going, that he must, that this is it and it’s over. He squeezes Will tighter and shudders a laugh when Will hushes him with a breath that stirs his hair.

“It’s alright,” whispers Will. He sucks his lips between his teeth, a flicker of frustration at the words that pass unknown between them. Instead, he settles on the one word that he knows now by heart, tilting his cheek against Hannibal’s hair. “Hannibal.”

Hannibal closes his eyes, hoping to memorize that sound forever. Just his name on Will Graham’s lips, sounding more lyrical, more beautiful than he has ever heard it spoken by anyone. He hums that he’s heard, and nuzzles closer, spreading his fingers against Will’s back and curling his fingers to draw knuckles up and down his spine.

They don’t speak more, nor do they move, for a good long while. And then downstairs the door unlocks, and someone calls Hannibal’s name and he presses a smile against Will’s chest, not making to answer. They’ll figure it out well enough and soon enough. Neither Tobias nor Anthony seem to have brought anyone home, as they meander through the little house and set the kettle to boil before retiring to their respective rooms. Will is dozing, entirely out of it, by the time the door opens again and Franklyn comes home, attempting to tiptoe his way to his room and managing only to walk into one of the kitchen chairs and curse his displeasure.

“ _In the morning, I will make you breakfast._ ” Hannibal murmurs, even though Will’s breathing remains even and slow. “ _I will bring you coffee in bed and kiss the sleepy smile from your lips._ ”

It is Will this time who makes a fussy sound, only grazing the surface of sleep at the gentle words. He ducks his head, nuzzling against Hannibal’s cheek, and seeks a small kiss, then another. It is enough, acceptance whole-hearted and profound to whatever this beautiful boy has said to him. The house quiets again and so do they, and they sleep deeply, held in the other’s arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hannibal doesn’t watch the city, he knows the city, it has flowed through his veins since his uncle had helped him get a ticket and entrance into the university here. He watches Will, he watches him take the city in, watches him respond to it and let it enter him. This is Paris, to Hannibal. This is where the life exists, where the brightest and most interesting people come to reside and work._
> 
> _He adores it._
> 
> _He adores Will in it._
> 
> _“_ Come to bed _,” Hannibal whispers, brushing a kiss against Will’s temple and lingering there, breathing him in, letting his exhale shift Will’s hair gently. “_ Let me spoil you. _”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Will awakens to the sun in his eyes and the sound of car horns. He snaps to, sitting up suddenly. If the sun is up, then he’s late to report. Swiftly, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and throws the cover back, but it is soft cotton beneath his fingers, not starched wool. He covers his eyes with his arm against the sun and for a moment tenses in confusion. There is no snapping of tent flaps in the wind, no gunfire clattering in the distance. There are no grumbling voices as soldiers make up their beds nor Crawford’s sharp shout to wake him.

There are only the sounds of the city, raucous, and from somewhere near, piano music twining among the noise. He smells sex first, stale and earthy, and food, not flavorless rations but eggs and ham and toasted bread and coffee.

Will blinks.

And he looks to the nightstand crooked beside the bed where a cup sits steaming.

With a breath of laughter, dizzy with relief and the sudden pounding of a hangover in the front of his skull, Will recalls exactly where he is. He recalls the bar and winding narrow streets. He recalls the beautiful boy who said his name like a prayer.

The beautiful boy who is not here beside him.

Will finds his underpants and steps into them, tying them snug around his hips. Coffee in hand, he stands stiffly from the bed and stretches, groaning, before seeking for Hannibal, who he sees only in glimpses of blurred memory. Pale skin and taut muscles, stiff cock and parted lips. Endless eyes of night clouded over so dark as to block out stars and moon alike. He is so lovely, in memory alone, that Will wonders if perhaps Hannibal was not the much-heralded fairy of absinthe’s lore.

There’s only one way to know, and so he steps heavy down creaking stairs to find him, and instead comes to face to face with another striking young man, but not his own.

“ _Oh God_ ,” breathes Anthony, pulling his Oriental robe tighter around himself.

Will’s lips part, and immediately every aspect of his polite British upbringing screams that he should be dressed, that he should apologize, that he should do something more than stand, gaping, at a man who lives here when Will does not.

“ _Tobias, he brought one home_ ,” the man calls out, eyes on Will not so much in distaste as utter disbelief. Beneath his robe, wrapped loose around him, he appears entirely bare, and Will wonders what heaven he stepped into that so many beautiful men live under one roof.

“I’m sorry,” Will stutters. “I don’t mean - I mean - how do you do? I’m just looking for Hannibal.”

“ _Of course you are_ ,” Anthony sighs, drawing a hand through his hair and pulling it with a tug before groaning dramatically and sweeping his arm for Will to pass on further down the stairs. “ _Seek your idiot. He is below. I’ll knock some sense into him with that skillet of his when I can see straight. Go._ ” He gestures to Will as one would a stray cat, and Will can’t help but smile. It is charming, being so normally seen. He is not being hounded out, he is not being berated or humiliated. He is being merely dismissed, and so he goes.

Cradling his cup in both hands, he takes a sip at the bottom of the stairs and watches the other man go, before following the scents and sounds of breakfast through a little door to the left. The kitchen is hardly big enough for two to stand in comfortably, but with all the grace and authority of a symphony conductor, there is Hannibal, draped in a soft linen shirt with only the bottom-most buttons done and his underpants beneath. Will bites his lip and watches him, turning over eggs and murmuring displeasure into the oven, a whirling dervish of unconscionable beauty with soft hair draped into his eyes and dark circles of recently-passed drunkenness beneath them.

“God bless France,” Will whispers into his mug, as Hannibal pivots to the sound of his voice.

“ _Oh no_ ,” he exclaims. “ _No, no, you’re meant to be in bed_.”

Will blinks at the tone but offers only a gentle and bewildered smile. “Good morning.”

Hannibal’s expression soothes into a smile immediately, eyes narrowing with it and lips slack in pleasure. He draws a hand through his hair and turns to check that the eggs won’t burn before he takes the steps necessary to stand before Will and kiss him on the lips.

“ _Beautiful boy, good morning_ ,” he murmurs, grinning when he peels one of Will’s hands from his mug to kiss his knuckles next.

“ _Oh for God’s sake, Hannibal_.” The same man from the stairs now stares balefully down at them both, and Hannibal just grins at him.

“ _Anthony_ ,” Hannibal murmurs. “ _You look atrocious_.”

“ _Fuck you, Lecter_.”

Hannibal just grins wider, and when Will turns to look, the other is watching Hannibal with a barely hidden smile himself.

“ _Darling, since you wield the language so well, could you please tell dear William that he should be upstairs for breakfast and flowers in bed, and that he is ruining my wooing plans by being so stunning and far too dressed down here_.”

Parting his lips with his tongue, Anthony gives Hannibal a withering look - attempting to downplay the smile that still hints in the narrowing of his eyes - and turns to Will, who regards him with wide-eyed curiosity.

“Hannibal says that you’re being disruptive.”

Will blinks, turning back to Hannibal in mild alarm. “Oh hell,” he says. “I’m - will you tell him I’m terribly sorry? I can go...”

Anthony lifts his chin as Hannibal squints at him. “ _The Englishman says that I’m far better looking than you and that he’s made a terrible mistake._ ”

Hannibal just lifts an eyebrow, turning to Will again and gently taking his chin to kiss him, again, wondering what horrors Anthony told him to have him look so fetchingly worried. He gestures gently to go back upstairs, gestures to breakfast, and then between them. The best he can do to indicate that he is making it for them, and that they can enjoy it upstairs. 

Hell if he understands. 

Hannibal kisses him again for good measure.

“ _You’ll get yours, Dimmond_.”

“ _Oh, in the form of a spanking, I hope_ ,” Anthony replies, nonchalant as he swings the tie that holds his robe closed back and forth as Will makes his way upstairs again. For a moment he doesn’t move when Will nears, and with a sigh and eyes rolling to the heavens, he diligently translates what Hannibal had asked him to, watching Will blush.

Will ducks his head, sweetly embarrassed by the words and openness alike, turning a small smile to Hannibal as he returns to his tasks. Will bites his lip, and looks to Anthony, imploring, but still unable to make eye contact for more than an instant.

“Thank God you speak English,” Will admits, as Anthony accepts this with a tilt of his head. “Could I possibly impose -”

“You’re going to anyway, aren’t you,” Anthony sighs, put-upon and fighting down a smile. “What is it?”

Will draws a breath. His cheeks are burning, never in his life would he have imagined himself in a place like this, with people like this. Never would he have considered, for even an instant, himself so at home already among them. There is no hiding here, no restraint or repression at all. Their natures are not only unhidden but celebrated in shameless flourishes of bright colors and grand gestures, and Will cannot help but find his spirit stirred by it.

“Will you tell him,” Will asks, his voice soft despite that Hannibal can’t understand him anyway. “Will you tell him that I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful in my life, and I cannot imagine that I ever will.”

Anthony considers him, his jaw working gently a moment as he considers denying the request, or flat-out translating something entirely different. Then he inclines his head a little and steps aside for Will to pass him, with his coffee, back up to Hannibal’s room.

“Bathroom’s on the left,” Anthony calls after him, pretending to turn away from the smile Will sends his way in gratitude, before making his way with heavy steps down to where Hannibal has returned to cooking again. With a heavy sigh, he drapes himself over Hannibal’s back and the other sets his fingers fond and gentle to Anthony’s arm, bringing his hand to his lips to kiss his palm.

“ _He thinks you’re beautiful_ ,” Anthony mumbles against him. “ _Perhaps the most beautiful man he has ever seen or ever will see_.”

Hannibal pauses a moment in his movements, turns his head to look at Anthony where he rests against him, eyes closed and brows furrowed from a lingering headache from last night’s partying. Hannibal swallows and smiles, directing his eyes down again before turning his head to watch his cooking once more.

“ _I feel as though I’ve lost my mind_ ,” he admits. “ _He has entirely bewitched me, Anthony_.”

Anthony makes a considering sound, humming low against Hannibal’s shoulder where he rests his cheek. “ _I’m meant to be the hopeless romantic_ ,” he says. “ _Not you._ ”

“ _It’s never happened before_ ,” Hannibal responds. “ _Not like this_.”

“ _Hannibal_ ,” sighs Anthony. He restrains himself for all of an instant, until Hannibal tilts his head to rest against his friend’s, rubbing softly. “ _You don’t know him, darling. You don’t speak his language, nor he yours. Neither of you understand a word you’re saying to each other._ ”

“ _We didn’t need to. We don’t._ ”

“ _My God_ ,” Anthony laughs, pressing a kiss to Hannibal’s neck. “ _You are hopeless._ ”

“ _You should have seen what he did with his tongue_ ,” grins Hannibal. “ _Not a moment of that stoic English resolve, just up so far I couldn’t breathe for it._ ”

“ _Shameless hussy_ ,” Anthony murmurs, fondly. For a moment he remains just so, until Hannibal has to step aside to check the toast in the oven, and Anthony sets his back against the counter, holding his robe closed with folded arms. “ _Just don’t -_ ”

Hannibal makes a curious sound, but doesn’t lift his eyes.

“ _Just be careful_ ,” Anthony says, a crease in his brow. “ _Hearts are altogether too easy to give away, and impossible to reclaim whole again once you have. Enjoy yourself, make those wondrous noises for him, show him a good time. Live in your dream but don’t let yourself forget that one must always awaken after._ ”

“ _Why_?” Hannibal asks, but it’s hardly petulant, it’s hardly naive. If anything, it’s a little sad, a little tired. He plates the toast and arranges the eggs atop, the bacon on top of that before he seasons both with fresh herbs. “ _What if this is when I grow up, Anthony? Meet a match, move away_?”

“ _With an English soldier_?”

“ _Does it matter_?” Hannibal raises an eyebrow and waits for Anthony to answer. He can’t, really, no one ever can. When they had first met, Anthony claimed to be in love with a singer, a man with a voice so pure it brought tears to the eyes of anyone who heard him. He had fallen hard and injured himself on the way. Hannibal knows he does not caution for spite. He knows. But he also knows that never before has he felt so entirely, completely sure as he does with Will.

Hannibal reaches to the window to take the flowers he had hidden there behind the curtain, and pulls one from the bunch to slip behind Anthony’s ear, kissing his cheek softly when he pulls back.

“ _Coffee’s in the pot_ ,” he tells him, taking up the plates, flowers under his arms, and making his way up the stairs again. “ _And don’t let Franklyn cook dinner, I’ll do it_!”

“ _I’m not that bad_ ,” comes the sullen reply from the other room, and Hannibal smiles.

“ _But you’re not that good_ ,” he counters, continuing up.

When Hannibal enters, his stubborn soldier is not in bed as directed, but at the window. In nothing but his shorts, Will stands in the morning air with his coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He watches the street below, full of people now bustling this way and that with their morning purchases of fresh foods from the market and dry goods from the stores. Hannibal sets the plate to the little table beside the bed, the flowers next to it, and when Will turns to him, all of Anthony’s well-intentioned concern falls to dust.

He thinks only of the words that Anthony brought to him from Will, and his heart skips faster for it.

Will smiles bright and beckons Hannibal near. He leans into Hannibal’s arm when it wraps around his waist, high enough that none can see them so close, and removes his cigarette from between his lips, exhaling a plume of smoke before brushing a kiss to Hannibal’s cheek.

“It’s lovely,” Will tells him, hoping his tone is enough to convey his awe at seeing Paris spread before them. The tiled tops of buildings arched into peaks or rounded to flat roofs, in altogether different conformations than any of the English cities Will has seen. A horse attached to a cart snorts from below them and Will grins suddenly, delighted.

Hannibal doesn’t watch the city, he knows the city, it has flowed through his veins since his uncle had helped him get a ticket and entrance into the university here. He watches Will, he watches him take the city in, watches him respond to it and let it enter him. This is Paris, to Hannibal. This is where the life exists, where the brightest and most interesting people come to reside and work.

He adores it.

He adores Will in it.

“ _Come to bed_ ,” Hannibal whispers, brushing a kiss against Will’s temple and lingering there, breathing him in, letting his exhale shift Will’s hair gently. “ _Let me spoil you._ ”

Will follows readily when Hannibal takes his hand, flicking his cigarette to the little balcony beneath the window. He pulls his fingers free only to set them to Hannibal’s cheeks and kiss him soundly, bearing him back onto the bed and climbing atop after him. Hannibal’s laugh parts their kiss and Will tastes that too, his bottom lip, the top, the corner, his jaw. A shiver ripples through Hannibal and produces from him a little sound that pulls Will’s eyes narrow in delight, watching Hannibal point to the plate so carefully prepared.

With a fond stroke of rough knuckles down Hannibal’s cheek, Will rolls from on top of him and sits cross-legged. Hannibal pulls himself up to sit, a sleek movement, and takes the plate to hold between them, a single fork in hand.

Will says Hannibal’s name with a sighed laugh and Hannibal’s smile fans little wrinkles in the corners. After a moment of thought, Will inclines his head towards the flowers, motions gently to the plate, and says with a grin, “ _Merci_.”

Hannibal hums pleasure and his smile splits wider. He nods, murmurs something that Will assumes is ‘you are welcome’, and with a gentle motion of fingertips to his lips and away, he points to Will.

“ _How do you say it in English_?” Hannibal asks him.

Will laughs a little as he accepts a forkful of eggs, fed to him, and places a hand over his mouth, politely.

“Thank you,” he says, repeating again the French and smiling as Hannibal scoots nearer, until their knees touch. Will sets a hand to Hannibal’s knee, thumb stroking slowly.

Hannibal repeats the English and Will nods, eyes bright. His lips part in sympathy, watching rapt as Hannibal sets the fork between his own lips. With a blush, Will glances away, to the irises, resplendent purple, beside the bed. He inclines his head towards them and when Hannibal looks, Will says, “Flowers.” Hannibal turns back to him, mischievous, and Will holds up a single finger. “Flower.” Then two and three and four. “Flowers.”

Obediently, Hannibal repeats the word, watches Will smile, feeds him another forkful of breakfast. Then he says the French word, waits for Will to repeat it, and they both laugh when he gets it wrong.

And so it goes, a word for a word, laughter and breakfast in between. Cold coffee when Will gets back to it again, and he hardly cares. Flowers are set behind ears and into imaginary lapels, before being put into an empty bottle on the window and proudly displayed.

Hannibal puts the tray to the ground and pulls Will close to kiss him, playful nips and bites to Will’s bottom lip, strong hands holding Will until they are unsettled and pinned above Hannibal’s head, and Hannibal watches him, entirely adoring, and lets his eyes hood.

“ _You are stunning_ ,” Hannibal tells him.

Will only laughs and shakes his head. “I didn’t catch that.”

“ _Wonderful beyond words_ ,” Hannibal says instead.

“Wait,” Will grins, kissing Hannibal again and again. “That was different than the time before.”

“ _I adore you_ ,” Hannibal tells him, smiling coy as he arches beneath Will and Will lays long against him in response. “ _And I don’t care what anyone has to say about it_.”

“You’re teasing me,” murmurs Will, thrilled by it, in heart and mind and body. Hannibal arches beneath him, laughing, and Will feigns an attempt to keep him held, only so that he can feel him squirm again. “I can do this too,” he says, a little arch, lifting a brow. “I can tell you that your breakfast was delicious. The flowers are lovely. That I love your city and -”

Will draws a breath, too short to fill his lungs, despite their being already so full they feel as though he could burst.

“I could tell you that I love you,” Will says, caressing Hannibal’s cheek. “And hope that you know it.”

Hannibal just hums, contented, like a cat, and turns into the touch. He feels light. He feels like he could fly, should he choose to, and he almost wants to try. Will is beautiful above him, sleepy-eyed and smiling and saying words Hannibal knows not the meaning of but can feel his heart swell with regardless. He bites his lip, delighted when he succeeds in coaxing Will closer for a kiss.

And then he grasps him, turning them quickly in bed and making the springs shriek, and pins Will instead.

Will’s curse earns him a particularly wicked grin from the devilishly handsome creature perched atop him. He lets his wrists be taken and held - turnabout is fair play and all - and meets Hannibal’s gaze with curiosity and a sly smile. Above him, Hannibal is radiant. The sun spills gold through his hair and the warmth of his cheek blooms like roses. Will curls his fingers to press to Hannibal’s hand, and watches in helpless pleasure as Hannibal works loose the ineffective buttons of his shirt to shed it.

When he releases Will’s wrists to do so, Will holds them in place, and as Hannibal’s shirt flutters to the floor, he arches. A wide hand holds him down again, and Will splays his fingers, laughing.

He can only imagine what his friends and the others in his company are doing. Undoubtedly sleeping off hangovers and struggling to find breakfast, arguing with brothel-keepers as to the sum of their tabs. And here lies Will Graham, an ordinary machinist in Her Majesty’s service, with an angel straddling his hips.

Hannibal watches him, the way Will lies pliant and comfortable, restrained by nothing more than a gentle suggestion that his wrists should stay on the bed where they were placed. He shifts and arches just a little, almost naked and entirely beautiful. Hannibal draws his knuckles down the middle of Will’s chest, enough to tickle, enough to have Will squirm and laugh and shiver.

Hannibal continues to watch him, gentle smile on his face as he takes in every response to the tiniest touch. He draws his thumb over Will’s nipple and delights in the shivering response.

“ _I wonder if you’re ticklish,_ ” Hannibal muses, and with a wicked grin almost goes to test the theory, but refrains. Later. They have time, and he will have Will comfortable to take his revenge on him for it with a chase, another pin to the rickety walls of this little place. “ _I know you like this,_ ” he adds, pinching Will’s nipple gently as he rolls his hips. “ _Just look at you._ ”

Will’s moan carries his answer to Hannibal’s musing, a low and heated sound as his nipple pebbles beneath talented fingers and his own hips raise in response. Hannibal’s smile is sleek but triumphant, his chin raised high as he follows the planes of Will’s chest with his palm to the other nipple, grazing his thumbnail across it.

“Hell,” whispers Will, clutching the iron bars of the bed to hide his trembling. Another pinch pulls his voice shamefully loud and his cock to stiffening, curling his spine to press his length into the hollow of Hannibal’s thigh. Balancing himself easily, Hannibal’s smile is that of a cat with the canary still in its mouth, a devious innocence that sends Will’s mind reeling.

His inexperience with most things carnal is vast. Desires for the company of men were recognized and muted at a young age, tamped down for the benefit of preserving reputation. Despite his university indulgences - rough and unpracticed things as they’ve been - not once has Will considered allowing another to do to him what he did to Hannibal the night before. He recognizes the hypocrisy of it - turnabout, again - but insofar as society is concerned, to bend has always been the greater of two evils.

God help him, but Will would bend for Hannibal.

Hannibal continues to play with him, gentle things, testing the waters for response before bending to take a nipple between his lips next. Humming pleasure as he sucks, Hannibal tickles the tip of it with his tongue and slowly opens his eyes to see Will respond with an almost violent shudder in his pleasure.

“Fuck.”

That word, Hannibal has an idea about. He sets his teeth lightly to the little nub and tugs, before pulling away and pressing hot kisses to Will’s chest and stomach, sloppy, messy things as his fingers walk their way down from Will’s navel and work on his underwear again.

“Hannibal,” Will pleads, but for what, he doesn’t know. For nothing, for everything, to hold him close and whisper against his skin and to be laid bare and ravished by him. He makes a helpless, choked little sound as Hannibal pulls the tie of his underpants free with a slow tug, but raises his hips all the same as Hannibal slips them low.

He blushes as his cock stands stiff against his stomach, gasping a laugh, brows knit and hands still clasping the iron bars above them. Never before has he been so bared - damn near displayed - as this. And never before has anyone looked at him with the expression that draws Hannibal’s features dark as a summer storm, his eyes narrowed in delight.

“Hannibal, please,” Will whispers. “ _S’il vous plait_ , God, please -”

“ _Squirmy little thing_ ,” Hannibal chastens him, smiling wide before bending to lick a thick stripe up the underside of Will’s cock, no preamble, no warning, relishing the shuddered curse that falls from Will’s lips. Hannibal makes quick work of Will’s underwear, letting them fall to the floor once more, and settles on his stomach between Will’s legs. He hangs off the end of the bed, toes of one foot down for balance, the other knee bent to the bed frame.

“ _I’ll have to find you something to wear, when I take you out again. Something fitting for your lovely eyes. For this lovely body._ ” He purrs the words and keeps his eyes on Will as he sets his lips to his cock again, kissing up the side of it before taking the head between his lips and sucking softly. He can feel Will twitch against him, a trembling little shift, and then Hannibal takes him deeper with a moan, letting his eyes close in a languid blink before looking up again.

Will digs his heels into the mattress, sheets gathering beneath his feet. With his knees drawn up, Will rocks, tentative, into the soft heat that swallows him whole and sends his senses reeling. Hannibal lowers his eyes again but Will is quick to touch fingertips to his jaw and press, just enough to return Hannibal’s gaze to him. His mouth slackens with a hitched gasp as Hannibal’s cheeks hollow, lips curved tight around his shaft.

And just as quickly, Hannibal bows his head again and takes Will deep. The soldier’s voice splinters loud and he presses his hand across his mouth to quiet it, to little good when Hannibal draws a languid suck, hard, from base to tip. His entire body is alight, trembling beyond his control, beyond any hope of ever regaining control. Flashes of white spark bright behind his eyes.

All the while, Hannibal watches him, dark eyes fixed every time Will manages to open his own enough to see. Spit shines on Hannibal’s lips, swollen starkly scarlet. Will tilts his hips up and though Hannibal sets his hands to them, he doesn’t hold him down. Instead, he hums a long, resonant note, and Will thrusts into his mouth again.

He feels every tremor, every jump in pulse, holding Will this way, taking his pleasure this way, giving more back. He is exquisite, beautiful in his responses, sensitive and gently embarrassed by it, cheeks flushed pink and the blush slipping down his neck and chest now too.

Lord, he is beautiful.

Hannibal brings up his hand to gently slip Will’s foreskin back, kissing the sensitive head, licking just around it, over and over as Will loses his voice and his breath and his damn reason. This is so good. So, so good. Hannibal thinks he could do this for hours, if Will would let him. 

Will arches. Hannibal swallows and takes him deeper, bringing his hand down to gently tug his balls, cupping the heavy silken orbs as his other hand slides up Will’s chest again, rubbing lightly over a sensitive nipple.

What little breath Will can gather he loses to laughter. Shuddering soft little sounds that quake from the very root of his being, pulsing free as his cock throbs between Hannibal’s lips. He could weep for it, and indeed a quick drag of his wrist across his eyes finds they’ve grown hot and damp in being so overwhelmed.

Hannibal squeezes softly, cupped hand and firm fingers, and Will can no more contain his release than he can his voice. A rough cry tears from his throat, and he shoves a hand into Hannibal’s hair. Pulling firm he finds that Hannibal does not move away but only sucks harder, and with a curse Will’s body snaps tight and he arches high.

He curses, he prays, he apologizes again and again as his cock thickens and twitches, spilling hot bursts of seed across Hannibal’s tongue. The quick jerk of Hannibal’s throat to swallow tugs delicious pressure around Will’s cock and he moans apology behind shaking fingers as another pulse bursts thick against the back of Hannibal’s throat.

Hannibal swallows, breathing in the sweaty musky warmth that is Will in pleasure beneath him. He can hear the apology in the tone, sucks softly to clean Will further when he jerks slightly, being so sensitive. Then Hannibal kisses his way over Will’s stomach, up to the center of his chest where his heart hammers against his ribs. Hannibal moans, a soft, adoring thing, and brings a hand between his own legs to stroke as he presses a kiss to Will’s throat, to just under his jaw.

“ _You exquisite thing,_ ” he breathes. “ _Do you know how beautiful you are_?”

“I know,” Will whispers, his embarrassment writ clear in a torrid blush and wide blue eyes. “I didn’t mean to, I - I ought to have warned you or - or just not, but -”

A kiss quiets his stammering, swollen lips touching softly to his own. Hannibal curls his wrist and hums, and Will nods, firming his kiss before turning Hannibal to his back. Hannibal arches a brow as Will props himself up on his hands, watching him puzzled as Will bites his lip and thumbs a smear of pearly white from the corner of his mouth.

“ _Silly man_ ,” Hannibal purrs, chasing Will’s thumb to suck it clean with a little _pop_. “ _What do you think I’ve said?_ ”

“I’ll make up for it,” Will sighs, closing a kiss against Hannibal’s neck. “God, ah - _pardon_ ,” he offers, eyes wide as he brushes away Hannibal’s fingers to take his cock in hand, himself, instead. “Hell. _Pardon, s’il vous plait_.”

For a moment, Hannibal just watches him, eyes wide and blinking deliberately quickly, as though it might help make sense of what Will has said. When the meaning clicks, Hannibal can do nothing but laugh, a hand against his mouth, the other gentle at Will’s chest when the poor man looks nothing short of humiliated.

“ _Oh, darling, what have they done to you_?” Hannibal giggles. “ _Shaming someone with such an exquisite cock, such beautiful responses, into forgetting they exist? For shame. For shame, Will, to queen and country both, or whatever it is you Brits say._ ”

Will blinks at him confused, and Hannibal sits up to frame his face and kiss him, falling back to the squeaking bed and taking a slightly bewildered Will with him.

“ _No. No apologies for something so divine, Will. No._ ”

“No?”

“ _Non. Pardon? Non,_ ” Hannibal attempts, giggling again and stroking Will’s face as he slowly starts to ease from his tension. “ _More, in fact, is what I think I’ll ask Anthony to tell you, when he wakes from his diurnal hibernation. You are beautiful._ ”

Will just nods, lost - entirely lost - but he caught what he could from the handful of words he knows and the warmth, God, the warmth with which Hannibal speaks to him. He rubs his cheek against Hannibal’s palm, kissing it before moving to his wrist, his shoulder, collar bone and cheek. The breath that snared so quickly in mortification releases slowly and Will curls against Hannibal’s side.

“ _Non pardon_ ,” Will asks, a little hopeful, and Hannibal nods once, firm.

“ _Non_.”

Finally, Will grins, sheepish. He brushes the tip of his nose against Hannibal’s cheek, touching a tender kiss just after. “Not only gorgeous,” Will murmurs, as his hand seeks low again and he fans his fingers across Hannibal’s cock. “Not only clever and far too charming for anyone’s good. Kind, as well,” Will praises him, folding his fingers to tug in a languid stroke. “Sweet Hannibal, how have I ever managed to be so lucky?”

Hannibal groans softly and drops one arm back behind his head, resting on it as he draws that same knee up and opens himself to Will’s gentle touching. He doesn’t know the words that Will presses to his skin, but he knows the tone, he knows the softness and the gentleness, and feels, immediately, that dangerous tug against his heart. He knows that in a few days when Will’s company leaves Paris, this will not just be a sweet memory of an illicit affair over summer.

It’s much more than that.

He swallows, thick, and drops his other hand to stroke Will’s cheek, biting his lip as they lock eyes and hold, as Will deliberately and beautifully strokes Hannibal up to delicious leaking hardness again.

“ _Do you know how nice it was to wake up to you this morning_?” Hannibal asks him, smiles a little wider, and opens his mouth to say more before he gets distracted by the most endearing, beautiful thing. “ _Good lord, you have freckles,_ ” he whispers, delighted.

Will watches with wonder the gentle joy that softens Hannibal’s expression. He grins, shy, still genuinely surprised to be the recipient of such warmth. A blink betrays his unasked question, and Hannibal sets his teeth to his bottom lip.

Moaning softly as Will touches him, Hannibal turns to his side to face him. He lifts a hand to press his fingertip to the sun-darkened spots scattered pale beneath Will’s eyes, one by one by one. Will grins too, as the tickling touches continue, until the little touches are replaced by Hannibal’s lips against his cheek.

He lets his eyes slip closed and his fingers tighten. Will’s cheeks ache from smiling so much, constant delight in the presence of his angel of Montmartre. He’s certain that he’s never felt such joy in his life, such easy relief, such contentment. In this little room, on the creaking bed with sun spilling golden across their bare bodies, the war fades away, no longer soldier and civilian, but merely two boys at play.

Will wrinkles his nose and his cheeks bloom rosy beneath the little touches, but it’s when Hannibal begins to count them one by one that Will laughs.

"You'll lose count!" Will warns him playfully, twisting his wrist until Hannibal's kisses falter to a gentle gasp and he noses at Will instead. A moment, another, and Hannibal slips one leg over Will’s hips and presses closer, moaning as Will’s grip changes to accommodate. Then he starts to count again.

Will’s laugh is bright, it carries, and Hannibal resists the urge to kiss him, instead continuing his futile count of the beautiful little marks that speckle Will’s cheeks and over his nose. He is beautiful. Utterly, entirely, stunningly beautiful.

More laughter until Will gets his revenge and strokes Hannibal properly, enough to make him lose count once, twice, again and again until he is gasping against Will, eyes closed and lips parted in a gentle trembling 'o'. Hannibal's throat clicks and he whispers something that makes Will’s heart hammer with heat, he whispers Will’s name, and clinging tight to the soldier’s shoulder, Hannibal allows himself to come.

Will’s breath catches, so full in his lungs that his chest aches from it, and he tilts his head to watch the boy pressed against him. Hannibal’s pleasure spills heat across his face, cheeks ruddy and a moan unfurling his lips, expression sweetly softened but for the single stitch between his brows. Will turns his cheek to rest against Hannibal's head and slows his hand, coated in wet warmth.

Never. Never in this lifetime or the next or the one after that can Will imagine another who - in every curve and contour, in every pout or grin, in every breath and beat of his heart - could hold him so enraptured. Will draws his hand away when Hannibal makes a little sound of discomfort, but meets his eyes with a mirrored smile.

And then Hannibal begins to count again, and Will can only laugh.

"You'll never manage," he tells him, reaching down the side of the bed for whatever clothes are there to wipe his hand on. He's met with an arched brow, expectant, as he sits back up, and with an obedient sigh, Will settles back to the pillow and silk-soft lips touch to his cheek again. He curls their legs together, pressed tight in the little bed barely wide enough for them, and lets his eyes slip closed beneath the fond affection.

" _You are not allowed to leave_ ," Hannibal murmurs, " _until I count them all. And so I will mark each with a kiss but for one, and then you will never go._ "

As sleep draws long his breath, Will smiles at the words, and somehow, Hannibal knows that he has understood.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will knows that word. Damned if he can tell anything else they’re saying, but that word pulls his heart against his ribs and setting his cigarette between his lips, finding bravado in booze and careless company, Will reaches beneath Hannibal’s arms to drag him gracelessly into his lap. Their eyes meet, their breath holds. In the depths of Hannibal’s eyes shine the city’s lights, like stars piercing through midnight sky, and Will loses himself in them, uncaring as Franklyn nudges Anthony, as the conversation shifts and Will doesn’t understand what they’re saying and he doesn’t care._
> 
> _“Say that again,” Will whispers to Hannibal._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

They doze in drowsy pleasure for the rest of the day, Hannibal tucked in against Will until it gets too hot and he turns away, and Will drapes over his back instead. Both rest, both need it, and beyond the window with its irises fresh and bright, Paris life goes on.

Markets hold fort as they always have, bright and loud and full of fresh produce and interesting people. No one talks about how at any moment the food supply could be redirected, how at any moment the war will remind Paris that it is at her doorstep, waiting to break down the door if it is not let in.

Hannibal dreams of a stream, bright and burbling, catching the sun's reflection like broken glass. He dreams of Will, pants rolled up and wading into it, laughing as fish curl around his ankles. In the dream, Will coaxes him into the water, smile bright and eyes narrowed, and he calls in French. He is beautiful. Lord, he is so beautiful.

" _Hannibal! Come on. Usually so brave and suddenly so shy. Come here!_ "

Hannibal stirs gently and feels Will’s nuzzle against his back. He frowns, clinging to the dream as hard as he can, but it slips from him like the water in the stream.

" _Hannibal. Up. Get up. I am not above kidnapping him to make you follow._ "

Hannibal’s frown deepens but slowly, inevitably, he opens his eyes. 

In the window, the irises still stand, illuminated black, now, by the lights outside, and beside them a shadow, curved and almost winged, almost frightening if this whole scenario was not so familiar.

" _Anthony, I've company. You will wake it if you carry on._ " Hannibal’s voice rumbles and against him Will makes a small sound and curls his arm tighter in sleep.

“ _Good. The sun’s been down for hours and you’re sleeping_ ,” complains the poet. “ _How unbearably predictable._ ”

“ _To sleep at night_?”

Anthony snorts, wine sloshing in the green-glass bottle as he takes a pull from it. “ _Night is for everything but sleep, which is why we do it during the day. Heaven help you, a day of domesticity and you’ve already aged fifty years_.”

Before Hannibal can hush him again, Will drags himself away from Hannibal and sprawls to his back. With his knuckles, Will rubs his eyes open and blinks sleepily, reaching for his glasses. The room comes into focus. Upon the railing of the little balcony, so small there’s hardly room enough for one to stand, is the young man he met that morning, a hand on the roof above to steady himself. Toes bent, he perches precariously high above the street, and for a moment, Will can do nothing more than stare at him in shock.

“Good morning,” Anthony grins, gaze drifting downward to take in the length of soldier spread naked before him. His attention lingers low, and his brow lifts high. “ _Well_ ,” he exclaims, “ _now I see why you’re so enamored, Hannibal_.”

Will curses a blue streak and reaches for the sheets to cover himself. Legs stuck, he tangles into them and in his hurry to hide his nudity, topples from the tiny bed with a heavy thud to the floor.

" _Extraordinary,_ " Anthony intones, and his smile pulls warm despite himself as Will makes a piteous sound from the floor that breaks into a laugh. For a moment, no one moves, Hannibal up on his elbow to lean and watch Will, Will tangled in the sheets on the floor, Anthony behind them taking them both in.

" _You two give me toothache,_ " Anthony complains with a sigh, and as Will sits up again, crawls to sit on the bed as Hannibal helps him up, he turns his attention, and address, to the soldier. "I had hoped you both would join us for our ritual dinner on the roof. Should he prove stubborn, as he is so wont to be, by all means, you are welcome to join us alone."

“The roof?” Will asks, glancing back to Hannibal when he presses close. He blushes as Hannibal presses a kiss to his shoulder without removing his narrow-eyed amusement from Anthony. A little squirm betrays Will’s unfamiliarity with any of this, all of it - being found _in flagrante delicto_ , being kissed by another man in front of someone else.

“Yes,” adds Will, after a moment more, because he’s all at once very hungry and unable to find a polite way in which to decline for the sake of his own shyness. “Yes, thank you. I’ll need to dress first.”

“ _Tell me what he’s saying,_ ” purrs Hannibal.

" _He has deigned to join us at our little roof garden party,_ " Anthony replies with a grin. " _I've half a mind to tell him that the dress code is nudity and a fig leaf."_

“ _Anthony..._ ”

“ _Don't you dare lie to me and tell me you wouldn't want to see him, bare as the day he was born, on your rooftop._ ”

“ _Oh, I certainly want to. I merely do not want the rest of Montmartre to._ ”

“ _Terribly greedy of you._ ”

"I'm sorry," Will interrupts softly, eyes wide and cheeks flush with color. "What's going on?"

"A discussion in propriety," Anthony answers with a grin. "Regarding the dress code at our rather exclusive little party."

Will's cheeks warm. "I'm afraid I've come ill-prepared for that..."

"I'm sure Hannibal will find you something fetching. Do come. If there is ever a way to see the real Paris, this is it."

“ _What did you tell him, you incorrigible man?_ ” Hannibal asks, laughing when his friend grins bright at him. In response, Anthony blows him a kiss and stands. Will chokes on his breath in alarm - the height from the street, the thin rail, all of it - but can only watch in wonder as the bottle is handed upward and Anthony takes hold of the roof, to pull himself up.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Will whispers, trapping a nervous, single note of laughter behind his hand.

“ _Show-off_ ,” sniffs Hannibal. He runs a hand down Will’s back, smile widening when Will jumps a little and laughs more freely. Will turns toward him and presses into a firm kiss, mouths clicking quietly together, a hand against Hannibal’s cheek as much to reassure himself as anything.

“Clothes, he said that - oh, hell,” Will sighs. He licks his lower lip into his mouth, pleased to taste Hannibal there, and then frees himself to stand, seeking out his uniform - strewn in unconscionable disarray around the room - for lack of anything else.

Hannibal makes a displeased sound and stands, bending to turn the lamp on and then stretching toes to fingertips with a near orgasmic groan as his spine clicks.

“ _You’re not wearing that,_ ” Hannibal tells him, making his way to the brightly colored and every-patterned disarray that is his open closet. “ _No, sweet boy, that ghastly uniform is not touching your skin again until it's altered. What you need..._ ” Hannibal makes a show and a flourish of presenting Will with a beautiful shirt, in a color that is anything but.

"For me?" Will asks, and Hannibal nods. "No."

“ _Non?_ ”

"Hannibal, it's frightful. No one should have to endure that."

Hannibal looks as though he understands, the shock on his face certainly legitimate before he shrugs it away and puts the shirt on himself. “ _Don't tempt me into giving you just the robe,_ ” Hannibal teases him, gesturing, instead, for Will to choose something on his own.

For a moment, Will genuinely misses wearing his uniform. He approaches the closet with tangible uncertainty, a dizzying spread of textures and tones before him. A frilled silky thing makes him grin, arching a brow at Hannibal. A starkly black sweater catches his attention next, delicate to the touch with a halo of soft fuzz softening its lines and the wide neck that Will can imagine hanging loose from Hannibal’s shoulder. He strokes his thumb across the sleeve and shivers.

Finally, he claims a white linen shirt, ignoring the fussy French disapproval from beside him as he buttons it up. Hannibal clucks to catch his attention and Will yields when Hannibal works the buttons down from his neck, opening the shirt halfway. Loose grey trousers are applied next, too long around his feet considering Hannibal’s height over his, and Will remedies this - tucking in his shirt- by prying loose the suspenders from his uniform.

“ _Oui?_ ” Will asks, arms spread. Striding closer, Hannibal raises his chin, and Will fights down a smile to snap into militaristic attention for his inspection.

And then he stops fighting and goes with it, much to both of their great amusement. Hannibal inspects him with one arm curled around himself, the other resting elbow-to-wrist against it, elegant fingers pressing to his lips.

“ _You need color,_ ” Hannibal decides, and steps past Will to gather a vest, bright and buttoned, a chain for a watch already attached to a loop, the watch, surprisingly, actually in the pocket.

“ _Next time, it's the robe. No questions,_ ” Hannibal warns him softly, taking Will’s chin in the palm of his hand and bending to kiss Will soundly.

Will can hardly stop smiling enough to return it. He slips into the vest, bright jade green and embroidered white with flowers, and buttons it as Hannibal seeks out his own dress.

It is an ordeal.

Will is helpless but to watch with fascination as nearly every article of clothing is pulled free of the closet, stuffed to bursting. Pants and shirts and jackets, scarves and cravats and handkerchiefs, articles of clothing that Will doesn’t even have time to identify, all laid one atop the other in a rotation that feels akin to watching a particularly skilled confidence man run a shell game. But to see the clothes applied - sleek trousers that hug scandalously tight to Hannibal’s long legs, a stripe of silk fluffed against his throat, a shirt that drapes both a little too large and perfectly revealing around his shoulders - is a transformation, and Will’s throat clicks as he swallows, eyes wide when Hannibal meets them.

He, too, assumes attention in mimicry of Will, but a lazy grin breaks the effect as Will stands and steps close to him. A deep kiss tangles them breathless, and Hannibal only protests when Will’s pinned him to the wall again.

“ _Only public displays of affection in this household, children,_ ” calls Anthony through the window, startling them both. "Come to dinner. I assure you, whatever you want to do to him we have seen and heard worse. The quiche grows cold and the wine warm, so I do urge you to hurry."

"Quiche?"

"Among other things," Anthony grins, turning to Hannibal next and encouraging him to the window with a slow sinuous arch of his back. Hannibal snorts and takes Will’s hand, fingers lacing, and leads him to the window to follow Anthony like cats scampering over treetops.

It is less precarious than it first appears, to Will, and he follows confidently when Hannibal takes the rear, gentle palms to his sides, fingers splaying and caressing Will through the light fabric of the shirt.

“ _You look simply ravishing_ ,” Hannibal whispers to him.

Will bites his lip, his smile small - uncertain - but genuine despite. He rests a hand over Hannibal’s to keep it on his waist, returning the little kiss he’s given with a soft nuzzle before he turns again.

The roof is flat, not angled - which Will, in his worry, had been anticipating - and as he takes it all in, he finds he cannot take a breath. Candles flickering in the evening breeze mirror the starry lights of the city beyond, behind, around, all around them as Will turns in a slow circle. The black swath of the Seine snakes dark between the endless buildings; beside it, so small from here but still easily seen, the Eiffel Tower, peaked proud. Beneath them beats the heart of Montmartre upon its hill, exploding energy on a summer Saturday night, endless threads of music and uplifted voices, laughing and shouting.

And somewhere, beyond the lights and trees, the tangled city streets and wide river, darkness, waiting. Will’s throat tightens too hard for him to swallow, gaze fixed on the horizon, awaiting a flash, a cloud, a bang -

Hannibal’s palm against the small of his back startles him suddenly back to Paris, and Will turns to him, scarlet-cheeked, and sets cool hands to his cheeks. A laugh, small, suffices for words, before he turns his back to the others and steals a hidden - well, mostly hidden - kiss from Hannibal.

Hannibal’s friends sit on a collection of mismatched chairs and a wide couch, around a small table held up on one side by a heavy book, on another by a folded piece of card. How the couch made it to the roof is anyone’s guess, perhaps it was there before they paid rent on the house and had simply claimed it. It was their favourite and least favourite thing all at once, one of them - usually Anthony - cursing when the weather turned, knowing he would have to climb up and cover it in a tarp to keep it from damage and decay.

Now, Anthony lays sprawled across it, head in the lap of a man Will has not met or seen yet, who seems contented enough to stroke Anthony’s hair, but is hardly enamored of the man. Across from them, in a creaking fold out chair, sits a dark skinned man with a bottle of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He raises a hand when he sees Hannibal and Will and beckons both closer. 

Will wonders for a moment, how these people became friends, what strange twists brought them together. He wonders if, were circumstances different, he would ever have met them, would ever have gotten along with them as easily as he seems to now, with no effort at all.

“Will,” Hannibal prompts gently, gesturing to his friend on the couch first. “Franklyn.” To the man in the chair next. “Tobias. _And Anthony you already know, I believe._ ”

Will nods deeply to the group at large, cheeks ember-bright under the attention, arched brows and sly smiles, curiosity near-tangible.

“How do you do,” Will offers, before correcting himself with a quick shake of his head. “ _Bon-_ ”

“ _Soir_ ,” Hannibal finishes for him, coaxing him gently forward with a slight smile and an arm wrapped through his own.

“ _Bonsoir_ ,” Will repeats. He tenses at the contact, more than he has ever showed with anyone in public, but Hannibal simply leans into him a little more before inclining his head towards a seat that Will gladly takes.

“ _Already teaching your new pet tricks, Hannibal_?”

“ _That isn’t nice_ ,” Franklyn tells Anthony, as the poet takes a languid drag from his cigarette.

“ _Since when has he been nice, Franklyn? How long have you lived with him_?” Tobias snorts, setting the bottle to the little crooked table that houses upon it a large still-steaming quiche, a plate of the most elaborate cheeses, grapes, pomegranates and cranberries, small fish and sliced cucumbers, a pack of cigarettes and someone’s half-drunk glass of wine. “ _He’s terrible. You’re terrible_ ,” he tells Anthony, who just grins at him. “ _And you better translate properly for him, it was your idea he come up._ ”

Anthony sighs, put upon, and tilts his head towards Will, watching him through messy curls before Franklyn moves them from his forehead. Will sits as though he’s at attention, feet flat to the roof, hands between his knees, shoulders straight. He looks nervous. He looks more so when Hannibal curls his legs beneath himself with easy grace and rests his head against Will’s thigh.

“How are you enjoying Paris?” Anthony asks him, gesturing almost immediately. “What they call Paris. You’ve yet to see true Paris.”

“You said I would today,” Will replies, another nervous laugh pulls his smile wide before it’s tempered. Anthony’s eyes narrow, and not in malice.

“Breathe, Will. We don’t bite unless explicitly asked to, and even then we do it so gently.”

Will sits up a little straighter as Hannibal, at his feet, wraps an arm around his leg, thumb stroking softly across his calf. He takes the kind admonishment as it is intended, and allows his shoulders to relax, incrementally.

“You’ve been very kind,” Will says, and Tobias laughs not in cruelty but in genuine delight. “Putting up with me in your home, I mean. It’s a lovely house.”

Anthony translates and Franklyn snorts, “ _It’s a disaster._ ”

“ _Good heavens, isn’t he polite_ ,” Tobias adds.

“There is disagreement as to your feelings on the house,” Anthony tells Will, eyes drifting downward as Hannibal turns his cheek against Will’s knee before stretching out for a bottle, any bottle, and finding absinthe beneath his fingers. “And agreement that you’re very polite. Should I tell them it’s innate to your countrymen or let them think it only you?”

Will breathes a laugh, tension unfurling. “It’s - all of this - it’s very different than where I’m from,” he says, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. “England would never stand for it. Shame, really.”

“Terrible shame,” Anthony agrees, stretching a little, lazily translating the words and smiling when three or four answers come at once. Will feels himself start to relax a little, even though every motion of Hannibal’s clever fingers against his leg makes him want to stand at attention again. No one seems to pay it mind, no one seems to care at all that they are so blatantly showy with their affection. In public, no less. Anthony turns to his side a little, adjusting his position against his friend and Franklyn accommodates with a sigh.

“ _Tell him he is more than welcome to leave that uniform behind and spend time learning French instead_ ,” Tobias says, taking a drag of his cigarette before sitting forward and selecting a piece of cheese from the platter to place between his lips.

Anthony translates.

Will’s laugh is a little less strained now but just as nervous. “That would be desertion -”

“Say it wasn’t,” Anthony interjects, smiling now. “Say you had the freedom of Paris before you. Would you stay?”

Will’s lips part and close again and he considers the words carefully. He would stay, in a heartbeat, for Hannibal. With him. Contented to wile away his days doing nothing but what they did today. It would be paradise, in truth, and yet...

“What would I do here?” Will asks.

With a grin, Anthony translates.

“ _Here_?” Tobias sets his toes against the roof and pushes back in a rather precarious lean. “ _You can do anything here. Perhaps more than any other city. This is a place of artists and weirdos._ ”

“ _Tobias is a cellist_ ,” Hannibal says, nuzzling against Will’s thigh, fingers toying with the bottle in his hand. “ _Franklyn, an affineur._ ”

“ _Unlikely yet entirely fitting_ ,” Franklyn shrugs, smiling, before leaning forward to take up some grapes and a piece of very creamy cheese as Anthony takes time to translate. Will listens, curious, amused, slowly relaxing into this environment to which he has not only been invited but accepted into. He swallows and pulls his courage from the flutter of his heart beat, feeling Hannibal press lips to his knee.

“And you?” asks Anthony. “What do you do?”

Will accepts the bottle handed to him, cigarette perched between his fingers as he drinks, nose wrinkling at the taste. He traces the bitter green from his lips with his tongue.

“I’m a student,” he says, before adding, wry, “I used to help my father mend boat motors. Now I’m reading for history.”

“Where?”

“Oxford,” Will answers, brow lifting. “Hertford College.”

Anthony’s laughter startles Franklyn into choking, Tobias starting to stand before the grape emerges and skids across the roof. Hannibal looks from Will to Anthony, back again and then once more to Anthony, who translates in a flurry of French, still grinning.

“I don’t -”

“Cambridge,” Anthony answers, and Will’s grin splits wide. “King’s. I’ll have to explain to Hannibal now why you’re leaving. I can’t bear to even look at you.”

Will leans back into the chair with a laugh, quieting only when his lips curl around his cigarette again. “What a bloody small world.”

“You’re still there?”

“I was just beginning my second year,” Will says, and he sets his hand to Hannibal’s hair, stroking gently.

Hannibal turns into the touch like a cat seeking affection, and Will swears that could Hannibal purr he would be. He gently tugs the blonde strands and turns his eyes down to look at the man who at length looks up at him as well, eyes hooded, blinking slow. He listens to Anthony translate for everyone, smiles wide to meet Hannibal’s grin at the news.

“ _Perhaps you’ll get along better now_ ,” Hannibal says.

“ _Oh, hardly. There is quite a war on between our universities, just as fierce as any front. He’ll never hear the end of it now. You’ve brought an enemy into our midst._ ” Anthony finishes his cigarette and with a deft flick of elegant fingers, tosses it to the street below.

“Why Paris?” Will asks Anthony, accepting some grapes and cheese when Franklyn passes the plate to him and Hannibal.

Anthony raises an eyebrow. “Over London? Over Cambridge? You’re joking. You know better than most how uptight our damn upbringing is. Sticks up asses but not the fun that comes with that metaphor.”

“ _I would love to see London_ ,” Tobias observes, “ _not that anyone’s asked me_.”

“ _You think you do - they’d have you in the gaol in minutes just from looking at you_ ,” Anthony snorts.

Will doesn’t argue, but merely nods, a laugh caught on his sigh. “I don’t think they’d know what to do with any of this, honestly,” Will says. “I’m not certain that I know, either.”

He lifts a grape as Hannibal sets his chin to Will’s knee, and neither need words for the gentle beseeching to be made clear. Will’s lips part just a little as he feeds the grape to Hannibal, bright peony pink blooming in his cheeks when Hannibal sucks lightly against his fingertips.

“It’s wonderful,” Will says, softly.

They sit quietly for a moment, and then Tobias starts up a conversation with Anthony in rapid French and Will doesn’t bother to look between them to follow. If they wish to share, they will. He is contented to feed Hannibal from his fingers, to listen to his soft words when he presses them to Will’s palm. He finishes his cigarette, lights another, and passes it to Hannibal for a drag.

When he looks up he catches Franklyn’s eye and the man just presses his lips together and relaxes them again on a sigh. There is a soft longing there, something almost nostalgic, and Will almost wonders if this is a collection of Hannibal’s favourite bedmates, and he is now part of them.

In truth, he is not in bad company, then.

He holds out the bottle with a raised eyebrow and with a snort Franklyn takes it from him.

“ _Who would have thought that soldiers were so damn polite,_ ” he says, and Hannibal hums, sitting up a little more to rest further in Will’s lap, to be petted, to be touched, to press his lips to the inside of Will’s thigh and make him shiver. “ _You and your obsessive valuing of politeness, Hannibal, no wonder you’re smitten._ ”

“ _More than_ ,” insists Hannibal with a clever little smile, shameless with the alcohol hot beneath his skin and the open intimacy in the warm summer air. “ _I’m -_ ”

“ _Don’t_ ,” sighs Franklyn. “ _Please don’t_.”

“ _\- in love_ ,” Hannibal finishes, almost prim, but with a fond smile for Franklyn lingering beneath his eyes.

Will knows that word. Damned if he can tell anything else they’re saying, but that word pulls his heart against his ribs and setting his cigarette between his lips, finding bravado in booze and careless company, Will reaches beneath Hannibal’s arms to drag him gracelessly into his lap. Their eyes meet, their breath holds. In the depths of Hannibal’s eyes shine the city’s lights, like stars piercing through midnight sky, and Will loses himself in them, uncaring as Franklyn nudges Anthony, as the conversation shifts and Will doesn’t understand what they’re saying and he doesn’t care.

“Say that again,” Will whispers to Hannibal, yielding the cigarette to Hannibal’s lips, holding it for him.

Hannibal leans in, lips to the filter and pressing at once to Will’s fingertips. He lingers there, drawing a deep breath, and pulls back to exhale softly away from Will’s face. He knows enough without a direct translation to understand what Will wants, and it makes him giddy to say it again.

“ _Je t’aime_ ,” Hannibal whispers back. “ _Je t’adore._ ”

“ _Lord help us all_ ,” Tobias murmurs, reaching for the wine again, uncaring as he leans back and takes a long drink. “ _This will ruin him._ ”

“ _Or it might make him,_ ” Franklyn counters. “ _Courage and love blooming in adversity and all that._ ”

Anthony says nothing. 

Will doesn’t care. He just watches Hannibal and with a little smile asks him to say it again.

“ _I’m in love,_ ” Hannibal murmurs. “ _With a beautiful soldier whom I never, ever want to let go._ ”

Laughing softly, Will flicks away the cigarette in favor of setting his hands to Hannibal’s cheeks. He closes his eyes, the lights swimming enough that Will wonders at how much he’s had to drink without even noticing, on how little food he’s managed, how happily distracted he’s been and how in love, how entirely in love he is. He hides their kiss behind his hand and grins as the others laugh, but for Anthony, who boos them.

“I love you,” whispers Will, looking up at the beauty perched atop his lap, biting back a little sound as Hannibal runs a hand through his hair. “ _Amour_ ,” Will says and Hannibal laughs, their noses brushing as he shakes his head.

“ _Je t’aime_.”

“ _Je t’aime_ ,” Will agrees, firework bursts crackling in his heart with every breath, dizzied by drink and delight both, youthful exuberance overwhelming.

“ _This is terrible_ ,” Tobias murmurs, but he’s grinning when Will looks over, and lifts his bottle in a toast before drinking from it. 

“ _It’s delightful_ ,” Franklyn counters. Will laughs, he can’t help it. This is ridiculous and they are ridiculous. Eighteen. What had Will possibly imagined knowing or having done by eighteen?

Certainly not love.

Certainly not Hannibal.

“You need to drink more before you turn this entire evening into a bloody soap opera,” Anthony calls, and Will snorts, leaning in to kiss Hannibal softly on the lips before reaching around him to accept the bottle of vile green liquid back from Franklyn.

He is free here.

He is alive here.

And as he gently tilts the bottle for Hannibal to take the first drink, watching his bright eyes grow even brighter, his cheeks warmer, Will knows that there is no way that he is not returning to this man after the war.

Hell or high water, Will will come back to him.

And he drinks to that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Did someone adopt you?” Zeller asks. “I heard sometimes people do that here. If they see a particularly pathetic looking something. They pick it up.”_
> 
> _“Him,” answers Price. “You’re thinking of him.”_
> 
> _“Right, that’s your habit, Graham. So what wide-eyed helpless thing did you scurry off with?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our brilliant and beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Will stirs not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Thank _God_ it’s not with a bang.

He squints against the sun and buries his head against soft blonde hair, their bodies folded neatly together and legs interlocked, Hannibal’s back against Will’s chest. Through the open window, the clatter of the city far beneath brings to vague recollection the night before, as they slipped back into their room from the roof. Too much to drink and too many cigarettes, not enough food but what was there was wonderful, rich and flavorful and nothing at all like what Will’s subsisted on for the sake of Her Majesty for the last year.

Good conversation and loud laughter.

Teasing and translation and banter.

Kissing, finally, their bodies coiled together in the chair as they explored the other’s mouth with gentle excursions of their own.

Will remembers stars flickering all across the city, in little glass jars along the roof, in Hannibal’s eyes before he closed them to lean near again.

He remembers the pleasant strains of piano music carrying crisp and bittersweet as autumn from the street below.

He remembers the decision he made, an unspoken promise, and it steadies his heart to rest again. Not one moment of the night before holds regret for him, and especially not that.

But a telltale creak of bedsprings betrays Hannibal’s movement before Will feels it. He spreads his hand across his hairy chest and smiles wider as Hannibal pushes his hips back into the curve of Will’s own. Shifting his hips once, slowly, Hannibal hums curious and sweet as Will’s cock fits stiff between his cheeks.

“Well, good morning,” Will murmurs, kissing Hannibal’s shoulder.

Hannibal makes a soft and fussy sound, nuzzling deliberately into the pillow even as he seeks out behind himself to touch Will. They had slept late the night before, on nights such as that usually, Hannibal would not wake until late afternoon. This is much too early.

“ _Beautiful boy_ ,” Hannibal sighs. “ _I cannot resist you, it seems, even half asleep._ ”

Hannibal’s hand slips around to cup Will’s ass and squeeze, pulling a startled but pleased noise from him. Hannibal grins, sleepy and hungover and horny, and works his hips back against Will again in a languid tease.

He wants to fuck, sleepy morning sex that leads to cuddling and more sleep before they drag the other to the bath and take it together, soaking in the hot water and sharing a cigarette between them. He wants to doze, to have Will with him when he wakes up and when he falls asleep. He doesn’t want to think about Will leaving, though he knows he must. He thinks, instead, of how he could follow him.

Debauched and lazy as he acts in summer, Hannibal is a very good student at the university. He could put in for a transfer to the front as a medic, he would do that, if he knew that he would be the one that Will would wake up to should he be hurt. Hannibal swallows and does not think of that possibility at all. He will not be hurt. His Will would get through this war, as Hannibal will, and they will find a life together after it.

He catches Will’s hand and brings it to his lips to kiss, over his knuckles, then turns it gently to kiss his palm next, down to his wrist to breathe him in and taste his pulse.

“ _I dreamed that we were lying in a field,_ ” Hannibal mumbles. “ _A field entirely filled with long grasses and flowers, and within it we dozed, and spoke and spent all the time in the world that we wanted._ ”

Will listens, attentive to the dulcet, low tones of Hannibal’s voice - attentive to the way it connects them both in sonorous vibrations. He presses a kiss behind Hannibal’s ear and smiles as he squirms, tickled.

“Shall we live here, do you think, or there?” Will asks, meeting the sleepy look and questioning purr that Hannibal turns across his shoulder with a kiss against the corner of his mouth.

Discreetly slicked, Will rolls his hips and eases into Hannibal from behind, still wonderfully open from the rough and exhilarating romp the night before that found Hannibal bent across the bed, legs shaking as hard as his voice. They were cheered from the roof, Hannibal so loud that he could be readily heard, and Will had only laughed and pulled more glorious sounds from him.

A slow push finds him surrounded in heat, and he presses a kiss to Hannibal’s shoulder, whispering against it.

“Perhaps Paris until we tire of it, until the thrill of drunken debauchery pales in compare to quiet evenings at home,” Will says. “And then England, not London, but the countryside. Just us and a few dogs and horses. You will be just as ravishing as you are here, dearest - lord of the manor and my heart both.”

Hannibal shudders, fingers curling soft in the sheets as he arches his neck and stretches his back to push against Will’s languid sleepy thrusts. He wonders if by some strange miracle they understand, they speak different words but the meaning is the same. HIs voice pulls low from him, a groan, and he splays his fingers once more.

“ _I would go to the ends of the earth with you,_ ” he promises, smiling when Will sighs long and slow against him, painting a smear of breath against his shoulder. “ _To any country in the world, to any corner of it, as long as you are with me._ ”

Will curses softly and thrusts harder, the springs on the bed squeaking their protest, and both of them laugh, soft, breathy things. Hannibal lets his eyes close, lets his mind imagine what it will from the foreign words poured against him so lovingly.

“Lovely Hannibal,” Will murmurs, groaning low when Hannibal shivers at the sound of his name. “I’m going to bring you home with me. I swear it, the moment this bloody war is over. Just wait for me,” he says, rubbing over Hannibal’s belly, each time inching lower until his fingers spread through coarse, curled hair and he strokes. “Wait for me, beautiful, and I’ll come and get you and we’ll go anywhere. Everywhere.”

Hannibal chokes back a sob of pleasure, as heated by the words as he is the steady tugs against his cock, the hot stretch of Will inside him. A delicate twist of hips brushes against the sensitive spot inside and he arches, back bowing, before he pushes himself even closer to Will behind him. Their toes curl into the sheets, feet still black from being barefoot the night before, where on the roof they stood and watched the city and kissed and danced when a street musician took up the corner down below.

“God,” Will says, and it might as well all be a prayer now. “I’ll take care of you. I promise I will, all the days of my life.”

“Will.” Hannibal’s voice hitches and he holds his breath before releasing it in a slow, shuddered sob of pleasure. He’s exhausted, his head throbs and spins, his stomach feels like he’s floating and gravity’s forgotten him. And Will.

And Will.

Grounding him this way, with his words and his touches and his slow, deep lovemaking that has Hannibal clawing at the sheets murmuring utterly nonsensical things.

_I love you._

_I will wait for you._

_Don’t go with your company, we will go, together, somewhere, anywhere you like._

How silly he must sound.

He hopelessly addicted.

Will pushes his other arm beneath Hannibal’s side, wrapping it across his chest, hand pressed above his heart. Mouth against Hannibal’s shoulder, Will pants prayers and praise, endless worship, endless love for this extraordinary boy, radiant boy, his fussy peacock, his Hannibal. Hannibal who from the moment that their eyes met has held him enthralled, Hannibal for whom Will would move the world just for a hint of that smile in his eyes -

“Hannibal,” Will gasps, body stilling with a whimper sighed against his skin as he squeezes Hannibal’s release pulsing beneath his palm in turn. A laugh eases the tension from his body but he doesn’t let go of him, he doesn’t pull away, he remains pressed just as near as before. Their carnal pleasures are a delight, a rare gift that both intend to savor for as long as they have, but there is more than that, Will knows, as their passion cools sticky on their skin and their hearts still beat quick.

There is so much more than only that.

Hannibal turns into the bed, he knows they need to bathe, he will change the sheets, he will make coffee and breakfast and pamper Will in every single way he can while he has him here. He thinks of the bar that night, the men who had come in with Will, his friends, his countrymen.

“ _Do you want to tell your friends you’ve found a permanent Parisian abode_?” Hannibal mumbles, knowing that Will won’t understand, knowing that he will most likely have to throw one of Anthony’s ridiculous shoes at him to wake him up to translate. “ _They are welcome to come by, if they need an education in freedom of choice._ ”

“And I’ll learn bloody French,” Will decides, tucking a laugh against Hannibal’s neck before his lips close against it. “And find out the meaning of all the beautiful things you’re saying. I hope they’re beautiful,” he considers, amused, tucking a strand of Hannibal’s hair behind his ear. “They sound it already. But I’ll learn and I’ll spend as long as we have making you say filthy things.”

Hannibal stretches enough to unseat Will from inside him, turning to his back as Will props himself above. It’s a very long answer for a yes or no question and Hannibal can only sigh, smiling as he sets a hand to Will’s cheek. His mind works for a moment and he kisses Will as he tries to translate without damnable Anthony Dimmond’s help.

He motions first to Will, then walks his fingers towards the door. A hand to Will’s mouth eases the immediate dismay that widens Will’s eyes, settling him. Hannibal bites his lip and motions as to the stroke of a shirt collar, buttons, he mimes pulling up trousers and points to Will again.

“You want your clothes back,” Will guesses. “No. You want me to put on clothes. I should go and put on clothes.”

Hannibal sighs towards the ceiling and presses on. A touch to Will’s chest. Walking fingers towards the door. Clothes. Will’s chest again, walking fingers back from the door, to signal his return - he hopes, God, he hopes Will returns - and then a particularly lewd gesture with a grin that makes Will snort with laughter.

“Christ, I love you,” Will whispers, kissing Hannibal soundly in agreement. “ _Oui_. Yes. I’ll go and come back,” he says, copying Hannibal’s movements and adding a nod, eyes wide. Relieved, in truth, he kisses Hannibal again in unspoken thanks that he’s been invited back, welcomed to stay, wanted so sincerely by someone so wonderful.

Hannibal watches as Will gets up with a groan, stumbling towards the door and making for the bathroom after, leaving Hannibal where he sits, drawing his knees up with a quiet grimace and settling his arms over them. He thinks of Will going back to his company, close and friendly and happy to be there. He thinks of what Will could tell them, what he would want to, about Hannibal and this house and what goes on here.

He thinks of Will coming back through that door with his bags, for however long, and picking him up and carrying him over his shoulder up the stairs.

He does not think of the war.

When Will comes back, Hannibal gestures towards the clothes he had borrowed the night before, implying Will should wear them, waistcoat and all, again. Hannibal gives Will a wicked look when he blushes and bends for his underwear, contented to sit and watch him dress. He does, enjoying the show Will puts on of taking his time to do up the buttons, adjust the suspenders with a snap, work the vest over strong shoulders.

He is beautiful. He is so beautiful.

“ _All the way to the bottom of the hill,_ ” Hannibal tells him, gesturing through the window behind him. “ _Around to the left. Most of the soldiers have their hostels there, you’ll find your company soon enough. And returning..._ ” Hannibal walks his fingers back to himself again, pressing his lips to them with a smile. “ _Will be easy. The house has a distinctive door._ ”

Will can hardly concentrate on the little gestures, try as he might, entirely too distracted by Hannibal himself. The sleek bend of his lips to a smile, eyes so dark they swallow the light as Hannibal folds his arms over his knees and sets his cheek against them. Morning sun glints gold across Hannibal’s ivory shoulders, his back against the peeling iron bars of the little bed, and Will’s chest aches, his lungs too big and his ribs too small and his heart too full, all at once.

He does not want to go, not back to the hostel. Not back to the front. Not to Oxford or England.

He could live the rest of his life here, just here, in the little attic above Montmarte, and so long as Hannibal’s eyes held on his, he would be happy for the rest of his days.

When his breath stirs in him again he draws it deep and blinks, smiling still as he bends to pull on his boots, clumsy brown leather, cinching the straps around the back.

“Wait for me,” Will asks him, straightening again and holding out a hand to motion for Hannibal to stay. “Just there. Wait for me and I’ll be back soon, as quickly as I can.” He tastes Hannibal’s mouth on his own lips when he draws them between his teeth, and adds gently, “I love you.”

Hannibal kisses his fingertips gently, blows a kiss Will’s way, and with a grin, watches him descend the stairs in his clunky boots to the front door and out again. He swallows down the immediate panic, and instead forces himself up to take a bath. He luxuriates in the hot water while the others sleep, thinking of Will as he languidly strokes himself, less to get off and more just to feel that spark within him whenever Will so much as looks his way.

When he’s done, he returns to his room, gathering Will’s uniform and holding it up to scrutinize. A moment, more, and he descends the stairs as well, making a brief stop in Franklyn’s room for the sewing kit, another in Anthony’s for the measuring tape, before returning upstairs.

He watches Will walk down Montmartre as long as he can see him, and then he sets to work.

\---

“Is that -”

“I think it is.”

“Surely not, I’d taken him for a goner.”

“I’m certain someone did, and his billfold, too.”

Will shakes his head, ducking it to demure his smile as enters the room, shared with Price and Zeller, both laying lazy in the narrow little beds the hostel’s somehow managed to cram into one room.

“I see you’re both making the most of your leave,” he remarks.

Price stretches, pleased, and folds his arms behind his head. The oldest among them, though only by a handful of years, a volunteer as all the rest of their company before the conscriptions began.

“I see you’ve been shopping,” Zeller notes, grinning as he rolls to his stomach and watches Will crouch beside his bag. “Where in God’s name have you been?”

“Montmartre,” Will replies, flicking his eyes up from his bag to regard them both. He knows his cheeks are bright, his eyes much the same, and he fears for a moment that the collar on this shirt is so low that they will see the bites and sucking kisses Hannibal has left on him. He supposes they will come to their own conclusions, and that’s just fine.

“Did someone adopt you?” Zeller asks. “I heard sometimes people do that here. If they see a particularly pathetic looking something. They pick it up.”

“Him,” answers Price. “You’re thinking of him.”

“Right, that’s your habit, Graham. So what wide-eyed helpless thing did you scurry off with?”

Will draws a breath, holds it long, and remains focused on assembling his things in some sort of manageable order as he answers, “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. Especially not to someone like you.”

Price winces on Zeller’s behalf, as the latter only grins wider. “You’re not bankrupt yet, I hope.”

“Not everyone has to pay for company,” Will responds.

“Rather pay in money now than in health later,” Price points out, and Zeller nods sagely.

“Seriously, Graham, jokes aside. We were worried when you didn’t come back with us. Nor yesterday either. You okay?”

Will sighs, finding that the smile comes unbidden, and he nods, glancing up. They mean well, they always do. Jokers and mischief makers though they are, these two men have never let him down, not through school, not through training, and - he knows - not through the war. His closest friends, and yet even they wouldn’t understand this. Not how Will can feel it in his bones.

“I just found a nicer place to stay for relatively little. I want to actually see Paris before we leave it. We did come here for a reason.”

“Rest,” Zeller suggests.

“Relaxation,” Price adds.

“Recreation.”

“And so I am, to the best of my ability, engaging in all the aforementioned,” Will assures them with a smile. The concern is genuine, not overpowering. They are as brothers, and Will loves them both dearly for it. He slings his pack over his shoulder and Zeller blinks.

“You’re not going already,” he says. “We’ve hardly seen you.”

“Except for the entire year thence, and God knows how long to follow we’ll be stuck together,” Will teases, gently. There is a pull there, familiar company that he knows well, friends with whom he has always enjoyed spending time. But the pull towards that little attic room is stronger still, and Will straightens, stiff upper lip as he fights down a smile and fails to suppress it entirely.

Price sniffs, resting his head against his arm. “She must be bloody gorgeous. Graham’s never lost his head for someone like this before.”

“Just dogs.”

“That’s right, just dogs. Did you find a stray, Graham? Camping out with a new pup in a cardboard box?”

“Or maybe she’s just a bitch?” Zeller suggests. “You can say, we’re not judging here. Judgement-free zone.”

“I’ll be back by sun-up before we go,” Will laughs, waving off more questions. “I know Crawford will have my ass if I’m late so I won’t be late.”

“You’ll just walk into our cots at some ungodly hour.”

“And apologize in that sweet country boy way you have.”

“Christ, and you wonder why I’ve gone off for a room of my own,” he grins, running a hand down his face. Sex and wine and roses cling to his fingers and the effect is enough to bring blood to his cheeks, suddenly scarlet.

The response is immediate, delight and curiosity both from his friends, Price’s laugh loud as he claps. “God, he’s like a schoolboy.”

“Now Graham,” Zeller begins, reaching out to catch Will’s wrist and affecting his poshest delivery. “One must remember, that although you face of near-certain destruction, you must remember the greater good for whom we serve.”

“Wine,” Price says. “Mostly wine.”

“Venture forth bravely, young man, and as you do, know that you push forward for us all,” Zeller says to him, releasing Will’s wrist and draping back to the bed. “For King and country!”

“Sod off,” Will laughs, shaking his head and running his hand through his hair. “Stay safe, you two.”

Zeller makes a lewd gesture and Price collapses into bed with his hands against his throat and Will leaves them with a snort, content that they will be the ones he returns to, if he chooses to return at all.

The sun beats down on the people crowding Montmartre, and no one pays Will much mind, not to the way he’s dressed, not to his army duffel. He is what he is, in a throng of people much the same. There truly is a certain freedom here, a different kind of air that makes Will feel like he could fill his lungs and actually breathe properly. So he does. He takes his time making his way up the hill, letting his eyes roam over the stalls and their wares, the little shops that greet regulars like they’re family. He watches the children. He stops near a woman who is selling flowers from a bucket and selects some freesias, bright yellow and deep purple and magenta, the smell overwhelmingly beautiful.

He knows their room will smell of them for days.

When he returns to the house, Anthony is on the porch, draped over it like an artist's model for a martyr, arm over his eyes and cigarette loose between his lips. Will watches him a moment before clearing his throat. 

“You alive, Cambridge?”

A single eye cracks open beneath the poet’s arm, and he takes a slow drag and exhales without lifting the cigarette from his lips.

“ _He’s back_ ,” Anthony calls out, and Will glances to the house as there’s a curse from inside. He grins and ascends the porch, delaying the joy of seeing Hannibal but a moment more, to lean against the rail beside Anthony. He sets his pack to the ground, flowers atop, and lights a cigarette. “The day that a jumped-up fresher from the Other Place drinks me under the table is the day I hurl myself, full-force, into La Seine,” Anthony says. “I’m only out here because of your better - vastly better - half banging about inside.”

Will can’t begin to stop his smile at the words, and pretends not to notice Anthony’s widen in turn. “I’ve no doubt that your university excels in a great many things, if we disregard academics, art, and sport,” Will says, ashing his cigarette and sighing smoke as he overlooks the street. “But what it doesn’t seem to have bred is men of their word.”

“I’ve got a number of words for you if you’d like them,” Anthony offers, grinning and settling his arm back across his eyes, cigarette dangling precariously between his fingers.

“The literary prowess of King’s College in action,” muses Will. “You promised that I would see the city.”

“You’re sitting in it.”

“Watching a drunken poet awash in the tragedy of being surrounded by too much beauty.”

This sincerely pleases Anthony, finally draping his arms across his middle and watching Will with narrow-eyed amusement. “Lucky me,” he yields. “And lucky you that we’re going out tonight.”

Will’s lips part, brow lifting.

“Wear your uniform,” Anthony suggests in a whisper, before stretching to prop the door open with his foot. Will inclines his head and hefts his pack again, flowers behind his back, before inclining his head with a rueful smile and heading in.

To a home populated by fascinating men.

To a house draped in decaying splendor, like flowers blooming through pavement.

To Hannibal, who gives him a very arch look indeed, awaiting him at the top of the stairs. Will drops his bag where he stands, and laughs, sudden and bright.

“I missed you.”

" _Silly boy, will I ever be happier to see anyone in my life than you_?" Hannibal muses, bringing his hand down to beckon Will up with a crooked finger and a wicked grin. He delights in how Will stumbles once, just at the foot of the stairs, and again, deliberately, at the top of them to fall into Hannibal's waiting embrace.

They are as children, Will humming contented joy, Hannibal holding him close as though he had returned from the war itself, not a simple errand.

" _I'm so glad you're home,_ " Hannibal mumbles against him. " _But you almost ruined the surprise you wonderful creature. Come. Come here with me._ "

Hannibal grasps Will’s hand and leads him back to the bedroom.

It’s then that Will produces the freesia, wrapped in brown paper, an altogether hopeful look widening his eyes and smile both. Hannibal draws a breath, the scent of the bright blooms riotous as spring in the air, and accepts them with both hands.

“ _You’re full of surprises, too_ ,” Hannibal murmurs, watching Will as he ducks his head to breathe them in. His soldier presses a hand to his cheek and a kiss to his hair, a whisper of love ruffling the sleek strands, still damp from the bath. Grasping his fingers and touching a kiss to Will’s palm, Hannibal continues into the room where Will’s uniform lies neatly pressed and tidy on the bed.

“You ironed my things,” Will notes, laughing softly, as Hannibal brings the flowers beside the bed to set among the irises. In an instant, Will sees a future unfold for them. Returning from work or study to their own little home, each seeking in every way to care for the other, to keep them whole and happy. No greater endeavor, no more satisfying pursuit can Will imagine than to devote himself as a husband might to nurture and protect the man who strides toward him, and gathers Will’s fingers to his lips.

He spreads his hand to cup Hannibal’s cheek and sinks into a kiss, holding Hannibal’s lips firm beneath his own. A low noise of need, of desperate soul-deep need, aches from him, words he can’t express in a way that Hannibal would understand. It is enough, he hopes, that the sound can be felt between them both.

Hannibal soothes him with warm fingers in his hair, stroking through it and splaying warm just behind Will’s ear, a tickling touch that makes them both smile.

" _I took that dreadful uniform in,_ " Hannibal tells him, well aware that Will does not understand until he will. " _It should fit you a lot better, beautiful boy. I would ask you to try it on but I'm afraid I might peel it from you with my teeth if you do._ "

Will can hear the shift in tone immediately, from warm and quiet to that deep rumbling purr that always brings with it the most delicious of debauchery. He considers the uniform, the bed, the promise to go somewhere this evening and knows if they don't rest soon, even a doze in the mid afternoon, they will hardly last the night.

Will ducks his head to nuzzle against Hannibal’s throat, smiling when the older boy’s shiver vibrates against his own.

" _Lord, get in my bed immediately, tempting thing,_ " he whispers.

When Hannibal holds Will’s hand in his, he goes, stopping only to gather the uniform and set it aside, carefully, over the rickety little chair in the corner of the room. Hannibal slinks backward across the mattress but Will is quick to catch him by the ankle. A snap of tension pulls their muscles taut, equal in strength against the other, and Will grins.

“Where on earth do you think you’re going?”

“ _Unhand me immediately_ ,” Hannibal demands, forcing his smile into a prim pout instead as he lifts his chin, tossing his hair.

“You’re like a stroppy little pony,” murmurs Will, bracing a hand against the edge of the bed to give another tug. “You’re only lucky I don’t have my riding gear here - a swift smack of the crop to keep you in line.”

Whatever Will says is enough to pull a shudder through Hannibal, enough to send a surge of blood and heat between his legs and he finds himself spreading them, one ankle still in Will’s hold, the other free to slip off the side of the bed.

" _Are you going to hold me captive_?" Hannibal breathes. " _Hold me down_?"

He thinks of de Sade.

He doesn’t think of de Sade.

The innocence that lilts into Hannibal’s voice, entirely affected and entirely effective, hoods Will’s gaze and parts his lips. Will kneels to the bed, lifting Hannibal’s leg, and beneath the loose linen pants he wears, Will brushes a kiss against his ankle. Another, higher up, nosing against the soft hair on his leg. His free hand moves to tug the ties loose and skim Hannibal’s pants down his hips, slowly though, not at all at once.

Inch by inch he bares Hannibal’s lower belly, the delicious vee that points down to the rising ridge between his legs. Only bringing them far enough down that Will can see the beginning curls of hair, Will meets Hannibal’s eyes and lifts a brow.

“You’re very naughty, do you know that?”

He releases Hannibal’s ankle to press his hands to his thighs instead, keeping him held and sliding low between his legs.

“ _Mal, Hannibal_ ,” Will manages, having heard that word to describe vinegared wine, bleak rations, and the front as a whole enough times to recall it. But here, here it is a delight, and Will scolds Hannibal softly, mouth moving warm against his belly as he keeps his legs pinned. “ _Très mal_.”

It’s broken and incorrect but hell if Hannibal cares, when this gorgeous boy is calling him bad and holding him down. He turns his head discreetly towards the door, still wide open to the rest of the house, to at least Anthony within it. He swallows. He doesn’t bring Will’s attention to it.

Let them be heard. It isn’t like they haven’t been before.

“ _And what did I do that was so bad_?” Hannibal purrs back, eyes narrowed and stomach sucked in where Will kisses against it. “ _Tell you to unhand me when I have spent all morning slaving away to make sure you go to the front beautifully attired? For shame._ ”

Will sucks a kiss against the jut of his hipbone and Hannibal swallows audibly. He knows he’s flushed, hard between his legs, tenting the loose fabric that will soon no longer cover him. Hannibal’s eyes flick down to his cock, up again to meet Will’s eyes and he bites his lip.

“ _How is it that you have been gone only hours and I have missed you as if it has been days_?”

Will ducks his head, tugging the waistband of Hannibal’s pants down a little lower. He seeks with his tongue into the crevice of thigh and groin, savoring salty sweat and the heady scent of the man beneath him, intoxicating. Lips curling, he sucks noisily and Hannibal’s little murmurs crumble into a moan.

Setting a foot to the floor as he reaches the end of the bed, Will kisses Hannibal’s belly as he bares him, mouthing open heat against the base of his cock when it bounces free against his stomach. Hannibal’s voice quivers, despite the depth of tone, a whimper rising in it. Will hushes him fondly, knowing already that Hannibal couldn’t quiet himself if he tried - and nor, in truth, would Will ever wish for it. With a forcefulness that floods Hannibal’s cheeks with color, Will sits back to turn Hannibal to his side, legs together, and pulls his pants off entirely. He turns his head and buries his face in Hannibal’s backside, licking a sucking kiss against his hole, before returning him to his back and holding him spread again.

“Wicked,” Will scolds him, nothing less than absolute adoration warming beneath the roughness of his voice. “Stay just there,” he tells him, grinning, and when Hannibal squirms and sets his heels to the bed, Will sets his hands flat against his hips and holds him firm. Not often in his life has Will felt particularly powerful, but Hannibal’s sweet submission makes Will feel a soldier all the more, watched with wide-eyed delight by a beautiful boy who revels in his strength.

Holding Hannibal’s gaze until the last possible moment, Will lowers his head once more, and curling his tongue beneath, takes Hannibal’s balls between his lips.

Hannibal’s breath hitches and he lets his eyes roll back as he closes them. When he exhales it is a whimper, plaintive and small, yet loud enough to carry through the door and down the creaking stairs.

Will’s mouth is beyond anything Hannibal has ever felt, hot and talented and inventive, soft when he wants to be, teeth grazing just there against delicate skin to remind Hannibal that should he choose, just as easily he could be rough. He isn’t, though, not here. A low growl hums against Hannibal’s skin and he curses, arching up and laughing when Will’s hands hold him down and still once more.

“ _Cruel_ ,” Hannibal moans. “ _Cruel and terrible thing you are -_ ”

Will lifts his head, panting, lips slick and eyes wide even as a smile lifts beneath them. “Terrible?” he laughs. “Did you just call me terrible, you rotten boy?”

Hannibal tries to hide his grin behind his hand but it does little good when he laughs, too, arching from the bed.

“ _You are terrible_ ,” he says, emphasizing the word, mischievous. “ _Horrible._ ”

“ _Horrible_ ,” echoes Will, as Hannibal laughs again and tries to push up the bed once more. Will snares him by the thighs and keeps him there, pressing palms to the insides to splay his legs to either side. “ _Non_ ,” he says, squinting. “ _Non_ , you are terrible. Hannibal is terrible. Look at you, God -”

Will lowers his head again, heart thrumming a swift tempo against his ribs, ecstatic in the connection of words as much as bodies. He sucks a kiss against the inside of Hannibal’s thigh, smiling as he finds a little birthmark there. His lips surround the secret spot and he hums his delight.

Hannibal’s moan is met with a sound of mild displeasure from downstairs and Hannibal breaks into giggles again. This is ridiculous, he feels drunk on this, on Will, on their play and their joy and their youth together. He shivers as Will laves the little spot with his tongue, remembering it, claiming it. Hannibal gives it to him willingly, himself in kind.

“ _They’ll make us sleep on the roof if we keep this up,_ ” Hannibal says, gasps of laughter still interspersed with weak little sobs of pleasure, overwhelmed by everything. He drops his hand, one then the other, to Will’s hair and holds him gently down. Not to make him stay, not to push him elsewhere, but just to feel the way he shifts, strong and proud beneath Hannibal’s hands, between his legs.

Lord.

How did he get so lucky?

Will tilts his head and shivers when Hannibal’s fingers tighten in his cropped hair. Nails scrape gently over his scalp and he groans around the base of Hannibal’s cock, kissing messy up the left side, tongue spread wide to savor. Fingertips press firm around sensitive skin, his thumb strokes Hannibal’s hammering pulse, and as he bows his head to take Hannibal’s head past his lips, Will slips back the foreskin and curls his tongue against slick, smooth heat.

A battery of curses snarl loose from Hannibal as he tries to raise his hips for more, Will’s lips bending as he sucks, free hand pressing to Hannibal’s belly to keep him held. To bring such pleasure to another man - to this man, this beautiful man - with his mouth thickens Will’s cock, warmth pooling in his belly and spilling beneath his skin. Hannibal leaks against his tongue, bedsprings jerking shrill as Will swallows and Hannibal’s body tenses in response.

“ _Going for a record today_ ,” comes Tobias’ particularly loud observation from the floor below. Will chokes, startled, and Hannibal moans all the louder for it as Will’s throat cinches against the head of his cock.

“ _He’s doing well,_ ” Franklyn adds, lazily. “ _That pitch is not easy to hit so quickly with him._ ”

“Try fingering him as well,” Anthony shouts, in English, and Will pulls back panting, cheeks bright and eyes wide, embarrassed and aroused all at once. “He’ll lose it if you suck him and do that.”

“ _What did he say to you_?” Hannibal insists. He squints past Will to the door and strokes a thumb across his temple, soothing. Will says something that sounds like stuttering and tries to stand, but Hannibal shakes his head. “ _No. Leave it open. Let them hear, the jealous little degenerates_.”

The last is loud enough that there is laughter from downstairs, and though Hannibal grins, Will looks stricken. Caught between embarrassment and a peculiar, debauched sort of freedom, he finds nothing but warmth in Hannibal’s gaze, nothing but adoration in his hands, and still a delicious heat between his legs. Drawing a breath to steady himself, and entirely aware of how stiff he is himself - still! - Will dips his fingers into his mouth as he lowers his head, and slides them between Hannibal’s legs, sucking him deep once more.

Hannibal’s whole world erupts in white. He doesn’t even have the breath to curse Anthony to the god forsaken nine circles because this feels so damn good. It always has. Hannibal adores the vulnerability, the pleasure he gets from this. He spreads wider, not arching so much as displaying, stretching, twisting, coiling beneath Will’s talented tongue and careful hands.

He groans when Will adds a second finger.

“ _He’s gone quiet now,_ ” Franklyn notes.

“ _He’s breathless. He’ll pick up if Will curls his fingers in him._ ”

“ _You know, I highly doubt he needs the help or instructions, he was doing very well on his own._ ”

“ _If you assholes don’t mind,_ ” Hannibal pants, voice high, taut. “ _I’m trying to have an intimate moment here. Fuck off and find your own._ ”

Will whines his protest to this, trying not to choke, trying not to laugh, trying not to melt into the floorboards of absolute embarrassment. It’s bad enough knowing others are aware, in the very present sense of the word, that he’s engaged with another in this way, but the commentary besides is almost too much to bear. And it truly, very truly, should not suffice to make him even harder than he already is.

He hollows his cheeks and instead, focuses, with a suck that hitches Hannibal’s breath to silence, riding forward with the undulations of Hannibal’s body. Bending his fingers, seeking out the little nub inside he’s found before with tongue and cock, Will watches as Hannibal arches onto his shoulders, lips parted in breathless silence. For a moment, he seems to hang in mid-air, suspended against the forces of gravity by his pleasure alone.

But when he falls to earth again, it is with a glorious cataclysm. Hand in his hair, teeth gritted, Hannibal quakes, moaning to the heavens. He shoves his hips in rutting twists against Will’s fingers, he fucks deep into his mouth. Will can hardly manage it all and so lets Hannibal lead instead, a hand against the back of his head. A little groan of Will’s own spills free as he slips his free hand between his legs and palms himself.

It’s extraordinary, they’re extraordinary, the fact that these young people are so open, so comfortable with this, encouraging experimentation and enjoyment, encouraging laughter and silliness together amidst the times they live in. Will feels his chest ache for the want to stay here, once again, to kidnap his own friends and bring them there, and watch that explosion happen.

Hannibal moans his name, sweet and intimate and soft, and Will looks up, eyes quick between Hannibal’s own. He is flushed over his nose and down his cheeks, lips red and parted as he pants. And Will knows, despite how short a time they’ve spent together, he knows that Hannibal is close, that he is holding out for Will to take his pleasure too, to watch Hannibal this way, entirely open and entirely his.

Will loves him.

Will loves him so much.

He curls his fingers, and Hannibal, with a whimper that seems to draw from deep within his chest, comes hot against Will’s tongue.

A startled sound from Will, mouth flooded with salty heat, tilts Hannibal’s moan into a laugh, a shuddering and sweet sound lifted towards the ceiling. Will tugs himself quickly as Hannibal’s seed spreads over his tongue, spatters against the back of his mouth, runs slick down his throat. He blinks and sees stars when he does, panting hard, overexerted and overwhelmed, and his chin glistens pearly bright as he pulls free gasping and smears the back of his hand across his mouth.

Hannibal curls his fingers and Will follows his bidding, dragging kisses against his skin, biting a nipple, licking his chest hair. As wanton, in spirit, as the rest of them, as Hannibal himself - love and lust incarnate - but now with the freedom to be, in a way he’s never felt allowed before. He sits heavy on Hannibal’s stomach, bent to kiss him hard for the instant he can hold it before he, too, whimpers a helpless cry and comes hot, pressing his cock to Hannibal’s chest.

There is a moment, after, like the eye of the storm. Utter silence but for panting breaths, no words, no commentary, nothing but their heartbeats and themselves, before Hannibal sets his hands against Will’s thighs and arches up to kiss him, intimate and soft, sleepy and wonderful. Slowly, from the floor below, comes the solemn sound of clapping, and Hannibal snorts, turning away to let Will kiss his cheek as he yells something rude down the hallway.

“Clean him and sleep on him,” Anthony calls to Will. “He’s a bloody octopus. And you need your rest for what we’re going to take you to see this evening!”

Will laughs, shaking as he lifts a hand to Hannibal’s cheek and brings their mouths to meet again in a softer kiss, mouths fitting warmly together. He tucks another touch of lips to Hannibal’s throat. Another in the hollow of it, between his collarbones. Another to his firm sternum, nuzzling the damp curls of his chest, dark with sweat and semen.

Hannibal sighs, a gentle little _oh_ , as Will’s tongue spreads flat, hair gathering against it. A few long laps that tingle on his tongue, a soft suck against a dark nipple, and Will settles to his side again, laughing exhausted as Hannibal curls arms and legs around him in a fierce tangle. Possessed and held, claimed entirely, Will ducks his head beneath Hannibal’s chin, and whispers love against his throat.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It is less a matter of whether Will could live like this, and far more a question of whether he can ever go back to living in any other way._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Will does not, despite Anthony’s teasing, go in uniform. He borrows another pair of Hannibal’s trousers, light and flowing and comfortable, chooses a garishly bright shirt and stands obediently still as Hannibal finds a scarf to mismatch with it.

The room smells of freesia.

They had not told Will where they were all taking him, but between Anthony’s sporadic translation and the excitement that bubbles through the men that settle arms around Will’s shoulders and pull him along, he assumes they’re going to a bar.

It’s a good enough guess. They shuffle him into the Moulin Rouge first.

“The best shows are later, but there was a much better place we had in mind for later,” Anthony tells him, lips moving warm against Will’s temple as he speaks, making the younger man shiver. “Take it in and let it consume you, you can’t enjoy the Moulin Rouge close-minded.”

Eyes upturned as they pass beneath the scarlet windmill overhead, Will hardly has time to brace himself for consumption before he’s swallowed whole.

Were he not being carted along in the center of his friends - it is hard to think of them in any other way - he’d have stopped dead in the door. The raucous clatter of music and the symphony of voices drowns their conversation. He is awash in glittering lights and sensuous velvet curtains, fantastic frilly dress and sleek-fitted suits. All around him swirls movement, bands of people passing to and fro, and the floor ahead is a tangle of bodies, dancing girls and men in top hats.

Will remembers his church lessons in childhood and thinks briefly of hell, before a familiar hand rests against his cheek and a soft smile reminds him that he’s nowhere near.

“ _Breathe_ ,” Hannibal whispers to him, touching a kiss against his temple and only smiling wider as Will tenses at the affection.

“ _There_ ,” chimes Tobias, pointing into the sparkling dark as they all follow towards a booth along the wall, elevated just above the floor.

“I think there’s people sitting there,” Will manages to half-shout.

Anthony snorts. “Then they’ll need to make room, won’t they?”

Will’s lips part in surprise and worry but he is swept along to the booth regardless, finding, to his surprise, that whoever is in there already is all too happy to shift aside, giving the five of them one half of the booth and keeping the other for themselves for now. It is crowded and noisy, smells mingling of absinthe and sex and sweat and too many kinds of perfumes. Will is amused to find that he does not at all stand out in dress here, in fact, compared to most, he is still rather conservative.

“So what do we do here?” Will asks, having to raise his voice to be heard at all as Tobias leans his chin against his shoulder and watches over it to the main floor.

“Drink,” Tobias suggests. “Smoke. Dance.”

Will blinks at him. Anthony blinks at him. Hannibal and Franklyn stare.

“You fucking speak English,” Anthony whispers, scandalized.

“Not as well.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You never asked,” Tobias shrugs, scarcely containing his amusement. “ _Besides_ ,” he says, slipping back to French, “ _I didn’t want to be translator all weekend when you were enjoying it so much._ ”

“ _I swear to God, Budge, I will flay you alive,_ ” Anthony laughs, and Will finds that he does too, unable to control himself. He’s giddy, this is ridiculous, he’s in a cabaret with a group of beautiful young men who live like they will die tomorrow, and hold nothing against another for wanting to do the same.

“Let’s drink then,” Will says, turning to regard the others. “On me. Whatever we want.”

“Never make that offer,” Tobias laughs, and Anthony slowly shakes his head. “But we will take you up on a bottle of something to start.”

They choose champagne, they choose something small to share between them to keep most of the intoxication at bay, since it’s _too early yet to stumble home_. Will leans against Hannibal, accepts his sloppy kisses with blushing smiles and feeds him pieces of bread and berries from his fingers, laughing when Hannibal sucks them instead. 

Around them mingles French and English and any other manner of languages. In their group - once the others vacate the booth to them explicitly - they shout in all manner of anything. Will finds, soon, that it hardly matters that he and Franklyn speak entirely different languages, because having an argument is just as fun, with the other three cheering them on in French and English both, no one offering a translation.

Will is happy here, happier than he’s ever been. He dares to tilt his nose against Hannibal’s cheek, soft as satin, and overlooking the mass of humanity before him, he wonders truly if he would be noticed here among them if he were to stay. A swallow of champagne, a whole glass at once, earns him a cheer and washes the thought away, as Hannibal’s warm murmur against his ear sends a shiver through him.

The lights go out and there is a joyous shout from the room at large. A noisy song kicks up and so do the women spinning onto the stage, flashes of bare leg and garters, ruffles whirling, rude gestures and painted lips. All eyes turn to them, unison clapping joins the song, and in the darkness of their booth Will turns his attention to Hannibal instead. His voice cannot be heard above the boisterous noise, and so he sets his lips to Hannibal’s instead to let him feel the movement of his lips as he mouths that he loves him.

Hannibal’s smile pressed against his own is its own acceptance.

He rests his cheek against Hannibal’s hair, head on his shoulder, as the show goes on. It is a raunchy thing, at least in implication, the sort of thing that Will has heard goes on in Paris but didn’t actually imagine could be true. There is no shame to how sheltered it makes him feel, as he works up the nerve to slide his hand to Hannibal’s thigh beneath the table. Instead, there is a pervasive joy, in every breath and every little movement of Hannibal against him, to shed the robes of university and the uniform of war and allow himself to see and to know.

Never would Will have thought that it could come so easily.

Anthony calls something to the girls on stage and one beckons him up. It takes all four of them, laughing like fools, to hold him back from going there, and in the end Anthony falls slack against Will and Tobias and giggles ‘til he’s sobbing with it. All of them young, drunk and alive, and relishing every second of it. The show ends to uproar, standing ovations and stomping feet, and Will finds himself screaming with the rest of them, delighted when he’s snared around the middle by Hannibal and dragged into his lap, dropping his head back with a laugh and just letting himself breathe. It is good. It is so good.

“I don’t think I have ever been so happy,” Will gasps, bringing a hand up to stroke over Hannibal’s cheek, up to his hair, smiling when he’s nuzzled. “So, so happy.”

He parts his lips for Hannibal. With abandon, they twine their tongues together, a deep enough kiss that Will finds his fingers snaring in Hannibal’s hair. Sure it is no more legal here than in England, but here, no one seems to care - certainly not their friends, who applaud and boo in equal parts, and seemingly no other soul who here and now wants only to enjoy their own vices without judgment.

It is less a matter of whether Will could live like this, and far more a question of whether he can ever go back to living in any other way.

Hannibal parts their kiss abruptly, a quick grin, and he sits Will upright again, arms still snared around his waist.

“ _Down the hill, or up it_?” he asks the table at large, spreading a broad hand against Will’s stomach. Franklyn points down, Tobias points up, and Anthony makes a rude gesture but grins before it can have its full effect.

“ _Ask the guest of honor_.”

Setting his chin on Will’s shoulder, touching a kiss to his cheek as Will turns to regard him, Hannibal asks which direction he would like to go. All Will sees is the gesturing, with no clues from the others, and he points down, pleasantly baffled.

“ _Claire de Lune it is_ ,” Anthony pronounces. He gives the champagne bottle a shake just to ensure it’s empty, and following their lead from the booth, Will fumbles with the francs in his billfold before Franklyn helps him sort it out.

A cigarette is quick to his lips outside the door, looking past the windmill overhead to the white-domed Basilica on the hill. Hannibal catches his hand and Will freezes, startled, before he turns to Hannibal and feels nothing more than the warmth of their fingers interlacing. There are men just as they on the street, and women too, and pairs of each together and groups of one or the other and many people who are somewhere in between. There is no reaction - no notice of Will and Hannibal at all, and Will can hardly contain the joy that swells within him, near painful, that they can do something so simple as hold hands and go unharmed for it.

And so he does, and more still, when Hannibal wraps an arm through his and they lean close down the steep hill towards the square below.

As they walk, Hannibal gives him a running commentary on the places they pass, in succulent French that Will does not at all understand. They share a cigarette as Hannibal points to one place or another, a window, a peak on a rooftop, seemingly insignificant things that are obviously important to Hannibal, obviously clear in his mind as good memories.

The others walk ahead of them, Anthony with his arms around Franklyn until they both stumble and laugh as they jog to keep their balance. Tobias smokes slowly, a dark cigarette that smells much more aromatic than Will’s. He watches the moon, once in awhile he lifts his hand to shift his fingers, finding chords and notes that no one else can hear and committing them to memory. They are all beautiful. They are all exceptional.

Will leans in to kiss against Hannibal’s neck and lingers there with a pleased hum.

“ _You beautiful creature,_ ” Hannibal whispers to him. “ _A hummingbird, a bird of paradise amidst sparrows and pigeons._ ”

“I could walk out here forever, with you,” Will tells him in answer.

“ _I would walk wherever you led me,_ ” Hannibal replies.

“Where are we going?” Will calls, to Tobias or Anthony or anyone who will answer him.

“To a wee fairy bar,” Anthony tells him, affecting a truly horrific Scottish accent as he does. “To play with the best and the brightest in our society, to get trashed, to get intoxicated and to get fucked, if we’re lucky.”

Will laughs, and the only surprising part of any of it is how easily he does. They topple down the hill and seek out a little door with a moon above it, off the main square. Easily missed, if one is not looking - easily found, if one is. Will leans closer to Hannibal and flicks his cigarette to the cobbles as they go. He will drink, he will smoke whatever is offered, he is intoxicated already on the wild freedom of it all but he wants only Hannibal against him.

A fairy bar.

Will supposes he’s never considered himself that before.

He supposes too that he’s never been anything else.

A cloud of smoke masks their entrance, as the door slips shut behind. It is a smaller place by far, tables and booths, and little candles and an easy piano song played from further in. Anthony dips to the side where an old woman sits, ducking to kiss each cheek in turn and greet her warmly.

“The madame of the house,” Tobias tells Will, as he too says hello to her. Franklyn and she hug warmly, conversational in the way a grandmother and grandson might be. Hannibal dips to brush a kiss across her knuckles and Will inclines his head when he knows he’s being introduced.

“How do you do,” he manages, as she presses Hannibal further on picking up an Englishman. That much, Will can gather, anyway. And he’s not the only soldier here, picking out numerous French uniforms among the men at rest.

She beckons him forward and Will finds that nervous as he is, he steps close anyway and takes her hand, warm and papery. She says something, something that makes his friends burst into giggles, even Hannibal, pressing his fist to his mouth to stop from laughing too loudly, though it hardly matters. She pats Will’s hand and lets him go, and he allows himself to be swept away into the crowd.

“What did she say?” he asks, finding that Tobias just shakes his head and Anthony needs a drink in him before he can answer.

“She said you are the most beautiful boy or girl she has seen in several decades,” Anthony tells him, entirely solemn, pressing his lips together so as not to giggle, but he does anyway.

Will tries to temper his smile but can’t, ducking his head until a drink is pushed before his face, and he takes it with a laugh.

“One for Oxford,” he says, lifting it with a grin before taking it down.

The openness Will felt in the Moulin is nothing compared to this. Hannibal snares Will warmly by the waist - _and you’re mine_ he sighs against the back of Will’s neck - to guide them to a booth. Franklyn and Tobias buy the first bottles, Anthony agrees to get the next, then Hannibal and then Will again and by the time it’s sorted out Will’s head is already spinning and he can do no more than succumb to temptation.

How could anyone resist when it’s so entirely beautiful?

Hannibal, this time, slinks into his lap, and Will spreads his arms along the back of the booth, soft plum-colored velvet beneath his fingers. Hannibal keeps an arm around his shoulders and a leg twined around his, toes hooked against his calf. No one looks. No one remarks. And when Will studies the room again above the rim of his glass, he realizes they are hardly the showiest pair there.

“ _Look at all the soldiers_ ,” Franklyn points out, as Tobias arches a brow.

“ _I’m looking, darling, trust me - I’m looking._ ”

Will’s eyes hood as Hannibal bends to kiss under his jaw, tilting his head further back against the seat, curling his fingers softly over the back of it. Time seems to move too slowly, and Will’s hearing burbles as though he’s underwater. He sighs and feels Hannibal mirror the sensation against him. He moans and Hannibal laughs, pressing closer, one hand down between them to stroke between Will’s legs.

“ _My beautiful Will,_ ” Hannibal purrs against him. “ _Exquisite creature, I will never let you go._ ”

Will’s breath hitches when Hannibal’s fingers curl, and he releases the too-short breath on a too-small laugh. “Someday,” Will promises, “someday I’ll know all the things you’re saying to me.”

“ _Here in Paris, there in England_ ,” Hannibal murmurs, feeding another sip of wine to Will. “ _Anywhere you go, I’ll follow_.”

“And when I’m sure I couldn’t possibly adore you more,” Will sighs, “that’s when I’ll have been proven wrong.”

Hannibal laughs, and leans in to kiss Will deeply, relishing when his hands slip from the seat and to Hannibal’s hips, sliding under his shirt, up his back, dragging the fabric as it catches against his wrists and moaning into the kiss. He is dizzy, he is drunk, he knows he will waver around when he has to walk home again, he knows his friends will as well, and that is such a strangely comforting, hilarious thing.

Will draws his nails a little down Hannibal’s back and he arches into the touch, groaning low against Will as he rocks his hips forward and ruts against him.

Will could care less if someone is watching them, if everyone is. He vaguely hears Franklyn leave their booth to seek out someone of interest, he vaguely hears Tobias and Anthony discuss something in slurred warm French…

“Isn’t that one of the boys you came in with?” Anthony says after a moment, slapping sharp against Will’s thigh so he breaks the kiss with Hannibal and sleepily nuzzles him instead.

“What?”

“Your soldier friends,” Anthony says, slower.

“Soldier friends?” Will asks, tilting his cheek against Hannibal’s and trying desperately to make sense of what the poet is saying with Hannibal’s lips pulling softly at his earlobe. He follows Anthony’s attention, the brisk nod towards another booth, and were Will not compromised by alcohol, he’d have alighted to his feet and sent Hannibal to the floor.

Instead, he chokes, with a helpless and frail little sound, as his throat snares shut around his heart.

Meeting his gaze, Zeller’s eyes widen in turn. Will’s lips part like a drowning man, shock spilling cold as a barrack shower down his spine, nails curling against Hannibal’s back enough to make him fuss his discomfort. There is no other explanation for Will being here than exactly what can be seen, a beautiful boy in his lap, in a bar full of men with sideways sensibilities. Hannibal leans back enough to watch the blood drain from Will’s face, and with all the manner of a child playing at hide-and-seek, Will drops his gaze to the table.

He supposes that, of anyone in the company, Zeller would be the most curious, but he’d never have guessed he was this way inclined.

“We should invite him over,” Anthony says, draping himself over the table and keeping his voice at a stage whisper so Will can hear him. “He’s so cute.”

“Shut up.”

“What?” Anthony asks, almost scandalized. “What if I’m jealous and I want to get some, listening to you two go at it day and night. My room is right under yours, you know, and getting off to your dirty talk satisfies only for a little while.”

“Anthony, I swear to God...”

Tobias looks over now, too, the entire table calmly studying Will’s companyman and all Will can do is bury his face against Hannibal’s shoulder and try not to laugh. He feels hysterical. He feels like everything is suddenly too funny to be real.

“ _And there’s the other one,_ ” Tobias points out lazily, and though he doesn’t understand Will turns to look at Zeller again.

Among the imaginings of being taken before a military tribunal, found guilty of indecent behavior or whatever they’ll call it, brought to the stocks or sent to prison or worse, Will watches in stunned silence as Price exits the bathroom and sets a hand to Zeller’s shoulder. Zeller doesn’t look away from Will, the familiar stare of shell-shock both out of place and wholly appropriate. Price follows his look, and meets Will’s gaze for only an instant. Straightening his uniform, with a quick clear of his throat, Price marches without haste or delay across the bar and out of the door of Claire de Lune.

Will cannot help but laugh. Pressing a hand to his face, he tries to stifle the wild disbelief that spills startled past his fingers. He should have seen it, had he let himself come anywhere near thoughts of this manner of living. He should have known, when he returned to the room, when they were willing to let him leave.

“I think I’m going mad,” Will whispers into his hand, blinking slowly up at Hannibal as his hand is gently pried free, and in place of his fingers over his lips, Hannibal’s touch in sweet concern instead.

“ _What’s happened to him_?” Hannibal asks Anthony, returning Will’s unsteady smile with a more assured one.

“ _He has just been struck with the skillet of realization,_ ” Anthony replies, tone somber, “ _that everyone in his life is gay._ ”

Hannibal just blinks at him, then at Will, then his eyes come up to look at the soldier everyone at the table is staring at. The young man swallows, turns away and lifts a hand to his hair, tugging it before slowly wriggling out of the place he’s settled himself and making for the door.

“ _We should have invited him over,_ ” Hannibal muses, and Anthony laughs, one sharp, bright sound, and relays the information back to Will, who does, then, giggle uncontrollably and wrap his arms tight around Hannibal to hold him close.

“I am losing my fucking mind,” Will snorts, tears squeezing from his eyes as he laughs and can’t stop. It’s ridiculous, it’s hilarious, it’s so wonderfully freeing and silly and good. And he has Hannibal in his arms and his friends, all his friends, around him. Here, of all bloody places. “I love everything. So much. So goddamn much I can’t - I - I can’t breathe,” Will giggles.

“ _Oh_ ,” Hannibal breathes, smile widening as Will buries his laughter against his chest. “ _He has gone mad_.”

“ _Or something very like it_ ,” agrees Tobias.

Will tilts his head up when Hannibal’s fingers thread through his hair and tug gently. He watches Will’s lips part, the pathways of tears - joyous, wild things - shining from the corners of his eyes. Cheeks warm with wine and pleasure, Will’s arms tighten around Hannibal more, and Hannibal’s smile pulls his own eyes narrow. His soldier, his Will - it seems an unfathomable unkindness that his upbringing has never let him know this, any of it, and Hannibal feels a peculiar protectiveness towards this man who can certainly defend himself against a great deal.

“ _I want you to always feel this way_ ,” Hannibal tells him, hoping his words are heard beyond the language in which he speaks them. “ _Never again should you feel any less happiness than right now._ ”

Setting his hands to Will’s cheeks, he leans low to kiss him, as to both their surprise, Anthony translates softly from beside. A little hitch in breath expresses Will’s understanding, and their kiss parts for only a moment before sinking deeper into the other.

Around them the bar grows livelier, as new people come in and others drink more, music plays and conversations reign, people press others to the rough back walls, hands wandering and lips kissed red. Will is in love. His heart howls with it. He is in love and he knows he wants nothing more than this. This man, this place, this life.

Together.

“ _If you’re going to make out take it to the wall,_ ” Franklyn complains as he returns, swatting Hannibal on the shoulder with a laugh. “ _You’re taking up space where full bottles could be._ ”

Hannibal pulls free of Will and Will moans, arching up and biting his lip and watching him with the most beautiful dark, pupil-filled eyes. Hannibal can’t breathe for a moment, his lungs feel compressed and broken, his heart beats so quickly he’s certain everyone in the room can hear it. He feels as though a shell has dropped around them, and without a word he climbs off of Will, holds out his hand to him, and helps him stand.

“ _To the wall then_ ,” Hannibal says, to the cheers and clapping of the table.

Will shakes his head first, polite Englishman that he is, and Hannibal laughs brightly, tugging him along anyway. Will follows, blushing bright and half-staggering through the thickening crowd of the little bar as Hannibal leads him onward. How many men Hannibal has met here, Anthony among that number. How many men Hannibal has pinned to the wall or been pinned by. And though some he has kept - he notes with a sly smile towards the table they’ve left behind - none have moved him so entirely as Will.

Will who does not hesitate, seeing the movement of bodies around them, to cup his hands to Hannibal’s cheeks.

Will who shoves Hannibal’s back to the wall as the did only nights before - has it been so brief a time? - in the narrow alley beside another bar in Montmartre.

Will who makes Hannibal’s soul sing breathless past his lips in a moan when he kisses roughly against his throat.

His soldier.

His very own.

Will grasps Hannibal’s thigh, fingers curling beneath the curve of his ass, to ride his leg high against his hip. Hannibal hooks his heel there and brings their hips to meet, their mouths entangled, as Will loses himself to all of this, to Paris and Montmartre, to freedom and abandon, to Hannibal -

“Beautiful Hannibal,” Will whispers, groaning low when Hannibal’s cock brushes stiff against his own.

“ _Your Hannibal_ ,” he whispers back, nosing against Will and rutting up hip-to-hip, both of them already hard, already aching for the other despite the mere hours between the last time they were so intimate. “ _Always yours, now. You own me completely._ ”

“I love you,” Will tells him, and with a wicked grin, grasps his other thigh and hoists Hannibal up again, as he did that first night, as he will do, over and over while he still can. He feels powerful holding Hannibal this way, kissing him and feeling his fingers in his hair. Hannibal moans wanton and free, and Will moans back just the same. “Where have you been all my life?”

Hannibal thinks of all the times he had wanted to leave Paris, to travel, to live, to see, how he had wanted to go as the war started, slip away and not be seen for years. Go somewhere where the conflict was not as harsh, not as frightening. The Pacific, perhaps, Australia. He thinks of how he had almost gone, just months before. How he would have missed Will.

“ _I’m here_ ,” Hannibal breathes. “ _Will, I’m here._ ”

Against the wall around them, rough panting and low murmurs and the whisper of fabric against skin becomes another part of the music, a freewheeling ambience that tugs Will’s heart faster still. He sets a hand to the wall beside Hannibal’s cheek, his other arm beneath him, keeping him pinned beneath the open heat of his mouth and the stiff stab of his cock pressed alongside Hannibal’s own. Before Paris, the mere suggestion that he might ever be so shameless as this, so wild in his sin, would have been unfathomable.

Let alone that he might be so happy.

Let alone that he might fall in love.

With an incredible man who loves him too, beautiful and fascinating, clever and bright, whose hands frame Will’s face as their bodies stroke together and they laugh, delighted by their own careless abandon.

“I never want to leave,” Will whispers into their kiss, voice aching to an embarrassingly high moan as Hannibal tightens his legs and twists against him. “Maybe - maybe I can stay,” he says, but he knows he’s drunk and the words do little more than tighten the building tension in his stomach. “If I lay low until it’s over, stay in the attic and don’t come out, they can’t find me -”

A hush against his ear quiets him as Hannibal slips his arms around Will’s neck and murmurs sweetly, “ _I’m here, beloved. My Will._ ”

Will’s voice cracks and he laughs helplessly, knees weakening until he forces them straight again, shoving Hannibal’s shoulders to the wall. Their lips bend together, part and spread and close again, following the movements of the other and rutting to breathlessness, mindless as to who sees or passes by them.

“Never,” Will gasps, biting his bottom lip so hard it flushes scarlet, releasing it with a shaking sigh. “I’m never letting you go, Hannibal.”

Around them, the bar no longer matters, nor do the people in it. Around them there is white noise and the heat of the other. Speeding pulses and panted breaths, whispered words and gentle fingers. They become entirely their own creature, spreading its wings and coiling and writhing.

They are perfect. 

Hannibal finds he soon doesn’t have breath or energy for his whispered words at all, and so stops them.

He thinks of his claim to Anthony that he would not need words with Will, how they spoke as though they understood each other always.

He thinks of Will’s sweet morning smiles and the rough divine growling of his voice in pleasure.

He curls his arms around Will’s neck tighter and spreads a hand against the back of his head. Will rests his cheek against Hannibal’s shoulder, lips spread against his throat, ruffling the sleek satin scarf with every panted breath. Cradled near, they move as one, Hannibal’s legs tightening as Will bucks up against him, Will’s arm tensing strong as their hips dip together.

Will wants to be inside him, within that endless warm dark where Will could live the rest of his days, accepted and held and adored by this radiant creature wrapped around him. Will’s throat jerks, clicking, as he swallows back another moan and finds that Hannibal’s carries hot across his ear in its place. Will’s fingernails press to sleek fabric as he grips Hannibal’s bottom with both hands, shoving them together, spreading him, with every rough thrust.

He wants to be inside him, always, but he could no more stop now than he could cease to breathe.

There will be time for that later.

There will be time for them.

There must be.

A wavering little whimper betrays his exquisite sin as he pushes hard enough against Hannibal that bruises will be left by the sharp jut of his hips. Hannibal laughs and Will nearly collapses, unsteady but clutching Hannibal as if he were a rock in a stormy sea, as if he were the only lifeline to stop Will from floating away from the earth entirely. Wet heat dampens the fabric between his legs, underpants sticking to his cock, and with flushed lips and ruddy cheeks, Will lifts his eyes to Hannibal, helpless to his entirety, and presses his hand against Hannibal’s cock, between them.

It doesn’t take long. 

The energy and heat built up between them breaks like a storm and Hannibal sighs sweet words against Will’s ear, breathless and fond and loving. They hold, long enough for Hannibal’s weight to grow a bit too heavy, and then Will carefully sets him down, immediately wrapping his arms around him, delighting when Hannibal holds him back just as tightly.

“ _You’ve made such a mess of me_ ,” Hannibal chastises him, drawing his knuckles down Will’s face, again and again. He’s dizzy, from drink and Will and life itself. And it feels incredible. He never wants that flutter in his chest to go away, he doubts it ever will, with Will at his side. “ _You’ve made a mess of you, too. Look at you._ ”

“Take me home,” Will whispers, and Hannibal bends to kiss him, just a gentle brush of lips to lips.

He follows as Hannibal leads; he would, again, always, to the ends of the earth. The smoky purr of French with which Hannibal fondly scolds him wraps around Will like a heavy blanket, comforting and familiar already. Whether it’s about their soiled clothes, how drunk they are, the French soldier into whose lap Anthony has deposited himself, anything at all, it doesn’t matter so long as Hannibal is near enough that Will can hear. His tone is rich and heady as wine, nothing less than adoring, and Will listens to him happily as they wind staggering and heavy-heeled back up the hill and home again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Already Will recognizes words that he didn’t before, painted broad above shops on the street below. Already he finds familiarity in certain people on the street, going about their morning business. Already he is comfortable, settled and serene, keenly aware of the fullness of his heart from these quaint simplicities - a quiet and profound pleasure more akin to a lake’s calm than the riotous waves of adventure that brought him here._
> 
> _He watches an old woman with a red kerchief carry home a loaf of bread and a bundle of flowers, and wonders if he will see her tomorrow, too._
> 
> _The answer aches, bone-deep._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Will would have imagined it all an extraordinary dream, if he did not wake up into another more beautiful still.

Birdsong has replaced the blast of horns. Sun has replaced the clatter of equipment. A well-loved couch has replaced his thin mattress, and his blanket - 

His blanket is Hannibal, draped heavy atop, nose tucked against his throat and back slowly rising and falling in sleep-steady breaths. Will curls an arm around him and rests his other across his eyes to shield from the sun, head still cottony with wine and smoke. Rooftops glisten with crimson tiles as the whole of Paris lights bright before his eyes. Over his shoulder is the Basilica, blinding ivory; further on, veiled by muggy heat and smog, the Eiffel Tower.

And all of it, every brick and cobble, pales in compare to the beauty of the boy who holds him so close. Will lays kisses to his hair, his brow, the bridge of his nose. He follows the ridges of his spine, one by one by one, with feather-soft touches of his fingertips. Hannibal squirms, tickled, and it’s enough that Will can reluctantly free himself from beneath and stand, unsteady.

He covers Hannibal - entirely bare, clothes strewn to the floor - with his shirt, and works his way down into their room in only his trousers. Endeavoring to skip the stairs that squeak most, Will makes his way to the kitchen to start coffee, at least. There is a relief in being cared for, a wonderful satisfaction in Hannibal looking after him in small ways - breakfast, each morning, ironing his things and so forth. But there is a thrill in returning the favor, and so as the coffee steeps, Will pads back up the stairs to the bathroom, to begin washing off Hannibal’s trousers and his own pants, still stuck to his leg.

It’s early, early enough that even Tobias, who tends to be the most level-headed of all of them, still snores in his room, and Will levers open the squeaky window in the bathroom as he starts to scrub against Hannibal’s pants in the sink. Paris has a smell, he’s realized, not something he can place precisely but something he knows he will recognize immediately upon smelling it again. It is like walking into someone’s home and finding that distinctive smell of their lives within it.

And in truth, this is his home, more than any other place has been for a very long time.

Without realizing he does it, Will’s lips press together and he starts to whistle, a slow waltz that he remembers playing in the street. A day ago, two, perhaps. He feels like he has lived here all his life, the way time stops and melds together all at once. He whistles and he washes, and he casts his eyes out the window every few moments to watch Montmartre wake up.

Already he recognizes words that he didn’t before, painted broad above shops on the street below. Already he finds familiarity in certain people on the street, going about their morning business. Already he is comfortable, settled and serene, keenly aware of the fullness of his heart from these quaint simplicities, a quiet and profound pleasure more akin to a lake’s calm than the riotous waves of adventure that brought him here. He watches an old woman with a red kerchief carry home a loaf of bread and a bundle of flowers, and wonders if he will see her tomorrow, too.

The answer aches, bone-deep, inside him, enough to halt his hands in their washing, clean water spilling clear across his soapy fingers.

And a sound more known to him now than all the rest, as intimately as he knows the beat of his own heart, restores movement to his fingers as Hannibal clucks at him from the doorway.

“I made coffee,” Will tells him, taking in the sight of Hannibal’s lanky body, bare but for their shared shirt laid open around his shoulders. “I was going to surprise you.”

“ _You are radiant, did you know that_?” Hannibal tells him softly, smile barely there against his lips. He is sleepy, woken, perhaps, by the stirring city or the warmth of the sun against him. Will would happily return to his bed - their bed - with him whenever he called. And yet there is a panic that tugs at him, that pulls his blood cold and his heart weak.

There is little time until the bugles sound and that will be his morning.

There is little time and they should do more, together, somehow.

“ _Your nose wrinkles, just a little,_ ” Hannibal adds, taking a step closer. “ _Just there, when you’re thinking too hard._ ”

Will’s nose does just that when Hannibal sets a slender finger to it, and he tilts his head up to let Hannibal’s fingertip settle against his lips instead, kissing lightly. He swallows down the swelling in his throat, like rising water when one is drowning, and laughs to hear himself breathe.

“I thought I’d get your things clean, after last night,” he says, holding up Hannibal’s trousers and blinking, startled, as he splashes soapy water to the floor.

“ _What a glorious mess you are_ ,” murmurs Hannibal, as he folds his arms.

“Sorry about that. But I made coffee, as well, I was going to bring it to you if I could manage up to the bloody roof with it and not burn myself in the doing,” Will says, stalwartly ignoring the soapy water around his feet, as if by doing so, Hannibal will not notice it either.

“ _You are terrible,_ ” Hannibal tells him fondly, watching Will smile - he knows the word now - and repeat it in a ridiculously upturned mockery of a Parisian accent. Hannibal snorts. “ _Don’t roll your ‘r’s so much, you sound like you’re from the farms down the way, Will, you’re better than that._ ” Another deliberately awful interpretation of what Hannibal has said and Hannibal snares him around the waist, uncaring that the cool water presses to his bare skin, that Will’s pants are soaking up the water too with how close they stand.

“I uh, think words talk you is uh, _horrible. Francais_ not good,” Hannibal informs him, eyes narrowed in delight.

Will’s eyes widen, feigning mortal offense enough to nearly hide his delight at hearing Hannibal’s broken English. Nearly. All at once he draws up taller, using his tongue to unfurl his lips, chin raised at a jaunty angle, in clear mimicry of Hannibal whose brow creeps higher at the display.

“ _Tu_ \- ah… _tu es terrible_ ,” Will tries, mangling the language but coming damnably near to Hannibal’s intonation, deeper than his own. “ _Tu_ \- no, damn, ah - _vous_ clothes _es très mal_ \- “

“ _Sont_ ,” corrects Hannibal, mildly.

“ _Vous_ clothes,” Will manages “ _sont_ like a - ah -” He holds his hands out and mimes gentle flapping.

“ _Oiseau_ ,” Hannibal sighs.

“ _Oui_!”

“ _You are so primly impolite sometimes, my darling Will, that I barely know what to do with you,_ ” Hannibal tells him calmly. “ _Perhaps I should swing you over my shoulder and carry you to bed and see if you like being spanked too._ ”

“ _Oiseau_ ,” Will repeats again, nodding, and Hannibal snorts. It is the most ridiculous thing, the silliest, that they play with their languages this way, to make the other laugh, to make the other happy. Hannibal wants to kiss him. He resists.

“Such a pretty peacock,” Will tells him. “Strutting around in your feathers and preening. You’re a temptation.”

Hannibal parrots the words back to Will, opting for a nasally version of his proper English accent, and Will presses a hand to his face to stifle the laugh that threatens to erupt from him.

"That's how I sound, is it?"

Hannibal mimics this as well, mirroring the lax fold of Will's arms across his stomach.

"You're not even wearing proper clothes, you absurd thing," Will laughs. " _Horrible_!"

" _You are_ ," accuses Hannibal, a quick nod making his words clear as his grin widens. " _Dreadful man, stomping around my home as though you live here. You should, you know. I've always wanted a messy soldier of my own to clean up after._ "

Will brightens then, casting a hand into the air in echo of Hannibal's elegant gestures, a bend in his wrist. He purrs his sounds to copy Hannibal's words - poorly, and only the ones he could catch - as Hannibal's eyes grow wide.

“ _You are a nightmare,_ ” Hannibal declares, deadpan. “ _I love you so much._ ”

Will just grins, gesticulating as he murmurs a strange facsimile of Hannibal’s sweet words. And then Hannibal snares him up, dripping pants and all. He hoists him over his shoulder, Will’s ass in the air, bare feet kicking and toes splayed in surprise as Hannibal wraps one arm behind Will’s knees to hold him steady and uses the other to turn on the water in the tub, warm, to soak their pants in there instead.

“ _Now,_ ” Hannibal tells him. “ _I smell coffee, and I know we need breakfast, so what we’re going to do, silly boy, is leave these pants in here to soak properly, and then go downstairs and act like civilized adults for a change._ ”

“I’m going to be sick if you don’t put me down,” Will warns him, head swimming in dry hangover delirium and delight, both. “You don’t even have any pants on - Hannibal,” he exclaims, tilting to try and see where he’s being taken. “Hannibal, pants - ah, clothes - _oiseau_ \- shit!”

This earns him a curt little slap against his bottom and Will hangs his head, laughing as the blood rushes to his cheeks. He folds his legs up against Hannibal’s arm, toes pointed towards the ceiling, and as the stairs pass him by, upside down, he spans his hands against Hannibal’s thighs.

“ _Non merci_ ,” Will whispers, sly, and as Hannibal crooks a brow, he nearly drops Will when firm fingernails scrape against his bare skin and Will’s firm hands curl around his ass.

Another slap and Will wriggles in pleasure as Hannibal carries him through the house and to the kitchen, stopping before one of the worn couches to swing Will off his shoulder and catch him in a bridal hold in his arms. Hannibal grins.

“ _Oui,_ ” he corrects him, kissing Will chastely on the lips before setting him to the couch and moving to the kitchen proper. “ _Yes, because we will have breakfast, which I am about to make, and we will have coffee, which I see you have already made. Look at us both, almost adults, a hangover for both and yet still determined to make sure the other is cared for. Lord, I love you._ ”

Hannibal turns to take out some bread, eggs and milk and butter, cinnamon and coarse brown sugar.

Will stretches languid against the sofa, one knee drawn up as he fishes a cigarette from someone’s pack on the table, lighting it with a match-pop and a wisp of sulfur. Sighing out a plume of smoke, he watches Hannibal through the little doorway, thin shirt doing little in the morning sun to conceal the movement of his body beneath. Now and then it rides a little high, baring the plush curve of his bottom, and Will revels in the grace of his movements, head to toe, altogether wonderful, altogether perfect.

“It will be just like this,” Will tells him. “Forever, I think. The moment the war’s done, Hannibal, I swear I’m coming right here, not even back to England first. I’m coming here and I’m going to kiss you until I can’t breathe, and lay with you - here or there, it doesn’t matter. Every day will be just like this, every night beautiful, every morning more so when I see you next to me.”

The words are sweet as burnt sugar on his tongue, with the same acrid finish. He takes a drag as if that might help and it does little more than bear heavier on his heart. The thought that he will not be here tomorrow, like this, watching Hannibal golden in the sun, is unbearable and only by sheer force of will does he choke back the sound that threatens to spill from his throat.

“Would you think me a coward if I stayed?” Will asks, softly enough that Hannibal turns toward him, watching across his shoulder. “A deserter, weak-hearted and soft.” His drag comes sharper this time, crackling as he turns to his side and draws up his knees, hand hanging from the couch where his cigarette spills ash to the floor. “They would shoot me if they found me. That’s what they do to men who try to leave.”

Hannibal sets the soaked toast to the hot pan and lets the initial hiss comfort him. Will’s tone had so immediately changed, so drastically, that Hannibal wants nothing more than to hold him close and reassure him that nothing is wrong, that nothing ever can be again.

He comes to the little doorway and leans out, watching Will flick absently at the butt of his cigarette, displacing more ash to the floor. Hannibal swallows.

“ _Would you think me cruel for asking you to stay with me_?” he asks, pressing his forehead to his knuckles, fingers curled over the doorframe. “ _Would you think me heartless to ask you to let the war wage without you, without us, and to go away with me instead_?”

He walks closer and bends over the back of the couch to kiss Will, lingering, on the cheek, nosing against him softly after, before pulling back. He is stopped by fingers against his wrist, pulled back in a gentle tug. Will holds Hannibal’s palm to his mouth, failing to steady his breath from the shudder that wavers in it.

How can time pass so slowly and quickly all at once? As though he has been here a lifetime already, with more to span ahead just as they are now. Were he to reject the near-certain death that awaits him in the trenches, death would instead find him facing six of his friends with their rifles uplifted. Were he to go, then he leaves this, a greater happiness than he has ever known or dared imagine.

He leaves Hannibal, whom he may never see again.

“No,” Will whispers. His throat clicks and he swallows, shaking his head before pressing a firm kiss to Hannibal’s palm, and folding his fingers closed over it. He musters up a smile as Hannibal watches him, searching his eyes with a crease in his brow, and Will forces himself to ease despite the rattling of his heart. “The breakfast is going to burn,” he says, managing a laugh.

Hannibal frowns softly and strokes beneath Will’s eye before returning to the kitchen to make sure that breakfast does not burn. It can’t, in Hannibal’s capable hands. He thinks of Will and of the war ahead, he thinks of the boys he has seen pass through Paris and then never return. He thinks of the joyful singing and delight of the soldiers in the bar the first night he saw Will.

He wonders how many will ever laugh like that again.

“ _Stay there, I’ll bring breakfast,_ ” Hannibal calls, turning just enough to see Will’s head pop up over the back of the couch, eyes narrowed in a smile. “ _And we should wash the pants quickly, let them dry in the sun while we have it._ ”

Will lets Hannibal’s words ease him, his assured tone and the sweetness of his expression. There will be time enough for agony, perhaps a very long time, perhaps very brief, but there is no place for it in this house.

In their home, there is far too much love to allow room for grief.

He draws his legs up and sits when Hannibal returns, two mugs in one hand and a plate of French toast in the other. They sit cross-legged, facing each other and near enough that their knees touch.

“ _You forget to eat_ ,” Hannibal complains, mild-toned and unmistakably fond. “ _I’ll have to ensure that you do. Whatever they’ve been feeding you isn’t nearly enough, though God knows how much you’ll be able to manhandle me once you’ve got your strength up._ ”

Will leans close, suddenly, and hushes Hannibal’s fussing with a kiss, hand against the back of his head and lips pressed softly together.

“ _You need to eat,_ ” Hannibal repeats, grateful when he is hushed again by now-familiar lips. “ _Beautiful boy, you must keep your strength._ ”

With a smile, Hannibal sits back, enough to set his mug to the low table strewn with newspapers and half-finished sketches and wonky-lined stave pages. When he sits forward it is to break some of the soft toast with his fingers and feed a piece to Will.

“ _We will go to the country,_ ” Hannibal tells him as Will chews slowly, sips his coffee. “ _I used to live in the country, the family estate is surrounded by gorgeous forests, mountains far behind, a river. I miss it awfully. Some weeks I desperately want to go back and then I remember what I would be returning to._ ” He shakes his head and sets a piece of sweet bread between his own lips next.

“ _One day,_ ” Hannibal sighs. “ _We will have a country cottage of our own._ ”

Will smiles a little, warmth in his cheeks, and he ducks his head to sip his coffee, made shy by the tenderness of it all. He takes the fork from Hannibal and wedges off a piece of the toast, patting up a bit of sugar - altogether a rare thing to be savored - before feeding it to Hannibal in return.

“I shouldn’t worry, should I,” he says. “Some faith, perhaps, is in order - that in meeting you by happenstance, it wasn’t happenstance at all. That these pieces came together as they were meant to be.” He sucks the sugar from his bottom lip and motions between Hannibal and himself, before crossing his fingers together.

Their smiles spread to grins and then to laughter. Both understand, in their own way. Both know in the very core of their beings.

“I’d marry you if I could,” Will confesses, smile softening the corners of his eyes. “I’d make you mine right now.”

Hannibal just smiles back. Whatever Will is saying to him is kindness, it is adoration, it is perfect. Whatever Will asks of him, Hannibal will do. They eat quietly after that, Will clad only in his underwear, Hannibal in only a shirt. No one wakes in the house when they finish, when they clean up, when they pour more coffee and return upstairs to dump things into the tub all at once to wash them together.

Anthony staggers home around the early afternoon with a groan and crawls up the stairs to his room without a word. He gestures rudely at Will when he laughs and asks him how the other side lives, and then they leave him be. In the late afternoon, with their clothes drying on the roof, Tobias starts to practice his cello in his room, the sound deep and low, humming through their very bones, it seems, as Will and Hannibal do little more than share the rickety couch in the main room and read their respective books. Hannibal strokes against Will’s ankle, Will holds softly behind his calf.

Franklyn comes home in the early evening and manages to seduce Anthony out of his room with promise of new cheeses to sample and dark cherries from the market.

It is like home. It is home. Everyone happy to be in the same space as the others, no one taking more of it than they should. Hannibal climbs to the roof to take down their washing and leaves Will in the main room with the others, passing around a cigarette and a bottle of wine, either Tobias or Anthony deigning to translate when anything of interest is said.

Will listens more than he speaks, but he does, to each, about everything and nothing at all. They are each of them clever, and too charming for their own good. They are each a fascination, Tobias at his music and Franklyn at his food, Anthony penciling words with half-interest to the page in his lap with a poem forming upon it. Will imagines Hannibal not only as Will has seen him, but at his studies, too, no doubt as diligent in that as he is in his debauchery. And when he returns, a joke pulling loud happy laughter from all of them, Will watches Hannibal descend the rickety stairs and he swears his heart stops.

Gentle amusement deepens in the corners of his eyes as Will beckons him close, feigning a grunt when Hannibal slides sleekly into his lap. They share a kiss, chaste and sweet, and it is that moment, just then, with wine on their lips and easy joy in the air that Will swears that for all the days of his life he will never forget. It is that moment to which he will return, always, it is that moment that will live in him.

He sinks his arms around Hannibal’s waist and they lean enough that he can set his head to Hannibal’s heart, and let the sound of it fill him.

“ _Would that we had cards,_ ” Tobias laments. 

“ _I refuse to play cards with you._ ”

“ _It is hardly my fault that you have terrible luck._ ”

“ _It certainly is that you count the damn things,_ ” Franklyn replies, eyebrow up as Tobias spreads his hands in a gesture of innocence. His grin speaks otherwise though. Anthony looks up and lets his eyes slide to Will and Hannibal on the couch in silence. His jaw works and he returns his eyes to the page before him again.

“Have you told him?” Anthony asks at length, and Will looks up.

“ _What are you saying_?”

“ _He’s just translating,_ ” Tobias says, leaning towards the table to get another cigarette and light up, hand cupped around the match.

“I don’t know how,” Will admits softly, nuzzling against Hannibal’s chest and sighing against him as Hannibal strokes his hair. “I don’t know what to say.”

Anthony keeps his tone light, but there is little pleasure in the look he shares with Will for an instant before Will lets his eyes slip closed to make this last a moment more.

“You’ve said a great deal to him already,” Anthony says. “I think he’s lucky to not have understood it all, considering -”

Will hides the crease of his brow in a kiss against Hannibal’s chest. Anthony bites his bottom lip and looks to his page, as Tobias keenly keeps the conversation going, to allow for the guise of translation.

“When?”

At this Will opens his eyes again, but looks at none of them, nothing in particular, distant.

“Tomorrow morning.”

Tobias mentions something about his most successful swindle and Anthony takes the queue to whistle, eyes on Will and brows furrowed.

“That’s a really tough break, Graham.”

“Yeah.”

Anthony watches him a moment more before ducking his head to his poetry again as Will curls warm against Hannibal and lets the man envelope him in his arms entirely, safe and warm. Hours more, hours and hours more, and then nothing. Then the front. Then a march. Then dirt and trenches and rations. 

Will swallows.

“I’ll tell him,” Will says. “This evening, when we’re together. I think he’ll understand, but… just in case?”

“Sure,” Anthony sighs, eyes to Hannibal, before softening his look deliberately for him. “ _You two are ridiculous, did you know that_?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hannibal replies, grinning wide, and drawing his hand slowly down Will’s back once more. A soft sound comes from the soldier against him, his soldier, his brave and beautiful Will who nuzzles beneath his chin and touches a kiss against his neck. He recalls asking Will, in surprise, what the English had done to him to make him apologize for showing his pleasure, and it gives him a profound satisfaction now to see how much Will has gentled since then, opened himself and flourished, as he should always be.

“ _You’ve charmed him beyond measure_ ,” Anthony says. “ _Beyond reason, really. You’re not that cute._ ”

“ _Liar_ ,” interject Franklyn and Tobias in unison, accusatory and defensive and pleased, both, to see Anthony’s eyes widen before he sticks his tongue out at them both.

Hannibal grins, lazy and crooked, like a cat in the sun beneath the gentle affection that Will presses in little kisses along his jaw. He spreads a hand through Will’s hair and curls his fingers to tug, stroking him softly.

Anthony crosses out a line on his page, as the conversation demures again. He watches for a moment as Will and Hannibal turn their mouths together, touching lips before settling again.

“ _He loves you_ ,” Anthony tells Hannibal.

“ _I know. He’s told me, in French no less._ ”

“ _And you_?”

“ _Equally. More than. I asked him this morning if he would_ \- ” Hannibal draws a breath, and releases it in Will’s hair, nuzzling close. “ _It doesn’t matter_.”

There’s a shuffling on the chair beside them and Tobias stands, drawing a hand through Hannibal’s hair and making his way to the bathroom upstairs, closing the door with a click behind him. Franklyn just lights another cigarette and seems contented to flick through the newspaper, leaving the other three be.

“ _The British execute for desertion_ ,” Anthony points out softly. “ _Archaic and barbaric, isn’t it. For king and bloody country, and they’re willing to kill those who haven’t the constitution to fight. Not everyone does._ ”

Hannibal stares at him, eyes wide a moment before frowning, as though he can hardly believe it. But Anthony wouldn’t joke, not about something like this, not when it is so close to home, just past their doorstep. He swallows.

“ _Surely not._ ”

“ _Unfortunately._ ” Anthony’s lips purse in a frown and he sighs, lifting his eyes again.

Hannibal tilts his head down to look at Will and meet his eyes, sleepy and sad and so, so beautiful. Will licks his lips and smiles, and Hannibal draws a hand over his hair, stroking soft skin and silken hair.

“ _Sweet boy_ ,” he whispers. “ _Sweet darling Will, I will find you again, I won’t just let you go. Please don’t bring that wrath upon yourself, not over me._ ”

“ _He doesn’t know what you’re saying_ ,” Anthony reminds him, and it earns him a narrow look.

“ _He understands. We do, both of us_.”

“ _They’ll shoot him if he stays, Hannibal, and don’t think they won’t find him_ ,” Anthony responds, and Will glances towards him at the tone, only to find himself turned back by Hannibal’s gentle touch against his cheek. “ _You’re making him want to stay._ ”

“ _Enough_.”

“Will,” Anthony says, clearing his throat. “A moment.”

Will doesn’t move, not immediately. His hand curls against Hannibal’s cheek in return and the fear that he’s fought all day suddenly tightens around his heart like a fist. He is pulled, by his own unwilling volition, from Hannibal’s arms to stand, looking between them both before setting his gaze on Hannibal.

Beautiful, radiant Hannibal.

“Please be kind,” Will asks Anthony, offering Hannibal a small smile. “Please tell him -”

“I’ll tell him what he needs to hear.”

Will’s breath catches again and he leans low to sink into a kiss, swift and deep, before turning towards the stairs.

“Tell him that I’ve never loved anyone, anything, anyplace more,” Will says, setting a trembling hand to the banister. “Tell him that I’ll come for him again, when it’s done.”

Will goes, and Anthony watches him before turning his eyes to Franklyn who merely looks between the two of them. After a moment, without needing to be prompted, he stands to go outside, closing the door behind himself.

Hannibal sits up. “ _What was that about_?”

“ _He leaves tomorrow, Hannibal. For the front_ ,” Anthony replies, setting his notebook aside and curling his legs beneath himself in the chair. He watches Hannibal with clear bright eyes and gently presses his lips together. 

Hannibal’s breathing stops, his lungs burn and his eyes widen before he just shakes his head, a slow deliberate motion as though the more he does it, the sooner it will be untrue.

“ _Tomorrow_?” he asks.

Anthony sets the side of his thumb against his teeth. “ _He’s going to tell you himself. He wanted to be certain that it was understood_ -”

“ _Tomorrow_ ,” breathes Hannibal, but the shake of his head does nothing to clear away the fog inside it, does nothing to stop the unsteadiness of the room itself around him. “ _No_.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Anthony interjects. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t feed the frantic tension he can see twitching across Hannibal’s brow. “ _He’s on leave, Hannibal, he isn’t free. A weekend, only, give or take a day. And if he doesn’t go back_ -”

“ _They won’t find him here_.”

“ _He can’t live in the attic, darling_.” Anthony manages a smile, joyless thing that it is, grasping Hannibal’s hand to lace their fingers together.

Hannibal lets his hand be held.

“ _I do well enough,_ ” he says softly after a moment, and they both laugh, huffs of air and no humor yet in them. Hannibal brings his other hand to his face to rub against his eyes but his shoulders don’t shake. He feels numb instead. “ _What will I do without him_?”

“ _What did you do before_?” Anthony shrugs, squeezing his fingers gently. “ _What did I do after Louis? You live._ ”

“ _Without him_?” Hannibal drops his hand and looks at Anthony again, eyes narrowing in displeasure, but it’s not aimed at his friend. “ _As simple as that_?”

Anthony smiles a little, unsurprised when it’s not returned. “ _Yes_ ,” he says, a breath of helpless laughter on it. “ _You drink to excess and you weep and you probably break a few dishes and you sleep, a lot, and then you drag yourself out of bed and carry on_.”

Hannibal’s lips part but there’s no words he can find to argue this, no breath in his constricted ribs to allow anything but a sudden sharp and stabbing pain. Anthony inches closer, just enough to bring Hannibal’s hand to his mouth, watching him.

“ _And now_ ,” Anthony murmurs. “ _Right now, you go to him and you love him. All night, until morning, and after too, but right now you go and you don’t let him leave your arms for anything._ ”

Hannibal’s throat works in a thick swallow and he nods, keeping his eyes on the hand Anthony holds, before leaning in and kissing him on the forehead, and gently working his hand free. He remembers, how Anthony had taken the loss of his Louis. He remembers the endless drinking, the mess, the lack of sleep or food and Anthony’s determination to keep everyone fooled that he was fine.

He was not fine.

Hannibal had not been fooled.

Hannibal had been the one to crawl into bed with him at two in the morning, to hold Anthony as he sobbed into the pillow.

He supposes now Anthony will do that for him.

Hannibal stands and moves past Anthony to get to the stairs, before changing his mind and coming back.

“ _One thing_ ,” he says. “ _Please, tell me just how to say one thing more, so I can tell him in the morning._ ”

Anthony just looks at him, eyes flicking between Hannibal’s own before he slowly blinks in acquiescence and Hannibal smiles.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There must be more, mustn't there?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the ineffable [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Not since awaiting deployment, not since the long journey to France, not since the first night near enough to the trenches that he couldn’t sleep for the clatter of gunfire has Will felt more restless.

On the floor beneath him, he knows what Anthony is saying. He can feel it sharp as shrapnel the moment that Hannibal knows. Will stands from the edge of the bed and packs up another bit of clothing. He sits again and curls his fingers together. He drinks the dregs of wine from a bottle left too long beside the withered irises and wilting freesias and he goes to the bathroom to gather water in his palm and have that instead.

He does not wish to be drunk tonight, nor have a single sense compromised.

It is when he returns to the room - their room - wiping water from his chin, that Hannibal is there, and when their eyes meet there is no doubt as to what lays before them.

“Hannibal,” Will breathes. “I’m sorry.”

“ _I love you_ ,” Hannibal tells him, stepping close enough to cup Will’s cheek, smile warm against his lips though it pains him to hold. “ _I love you beyond all words and reason, Will Graham._ ”

A kiss, gentle and soft, repeated, again and again until Will’s arms wrap tight around Hannibal and hold on and Hannibal’s next sound is a little laugh, entirely genuine.

“ _What a mess you’ve made of me, sweet boy_ ,” Hannibal sighs, nuzzling against him. He takes Will’s hand gently, sets his thumb against Will’s palm so his fingers curl over. “ _How you have changed my life so entirely in three days and four nights, I cannot possibly fathom._ ”

He steps, again, Will following, until Hannibal’s eyes narrow as he grins, and Will laughs despite himself, and Hannibal leads them in a slow waltz around the tiny room.

There is always music in Montmartre. Be it the rhythmic clatter of cartwheels over cobblestones in the morning or the ribald drunken hymns of revelers in the street at night, the city is as alive with movement as the boy into whose embrace Will sinks willingly. It is piano, tonight, a familiar tune heard often, carried from a phonograph in a little room across the street.

Will sets his hand to the small of Hannibal’s back and turns their palms together. With a lift of his chin, he seems every part the proper Englishman, until a sly smile draws up the corners of his eyes. They step together in easy turns, barely dressed and laughing.

Their eyes shine, both of them, bright as the city’s lights when their gazes hold.

“ _Je t’aime_ ,” Will tells him, his form too finite to hold all the feeling that swells inside. “God, Hannibal, I love you.”

Hannibal repeats it back to him, ducking his head to seek Will’s lips with his own, before, with a grin, spinning Will away and laughing as Will curses and spins back.

“ _We have all night and so much to do_ ,” Hannibal muses, holding Will close again. “ _So many times I want you to have me, so many things I want to do with you, and yet right now… I am so happy to just dance with you._ ” Hannibal dips Will dramatically and kisses his throat when he laughs.

He finds, strangely, that it is impossible to get sad with Will here, alive and well and warm and perfect in his arms. So Hannibal grins when he lifts Will up again and hoists him up, this time, against himself. Will laughs, bright as sun piercing summer rain, and without pause hooks his heels around Hannibal’s back and sets his hands to Hannibal’s cheeks.

“Not such a dainty peacock after all, are you,” Will murmurs, leaning low to kiss him.

It is a greater certainty than grief when such warmth entwines them tight. The bed springs squeak, bouncing, as Hannibal falls back, Will unlocking his legs only to squeeze them tight against Hannibal’s hips. There is no distance between them, chest to chest and belly to belly, mouth to mouth and hands caught on cheek and hair and neck and shoulder. It is hard to imagine, though kilometers and days may span vast, that anything could ever keep them apart.

He will stay. He will return. He will never leave. He will take Hannibal away. Every potential path spreads before them when their mouths part to allow their tongues to tangle. Will’s hand spreads beneath Hannibal’s shirt and rests against his heart, and it is all the assurance that he needs for whatever dawn brings.

“I’ve a lifetime to sleep beside you,” Will promises, he hopes, he prays. “I won’t spend tonight doing it.”

Hannibal smiles like he understands, and Will thinks that perhaps they both have, always, it just took them a little while to realize it. They don’t need spoken language. Knowing the other is there, warm and safe and happy, that’s enough. A brush of fingers against Will’s lips speaks of love, against his cheek of devotion, against his neck of desire and then down, down over peaked nipples and taut stomach, down to the bulge between his legs.

Will softly moans and Hannibal nuzzles him.

They shared a restful day together, enough energy conserved now for a night of no rest at all. Hannibal snares Will gently by the hair and kisses him deep, arching up and stroking one hand against Will’s face, the other down his back in comfort and reassurance.

“ _This isn’t the end_ ,” Hannibal promises him, breathless between kisses that grow deeper in their fervor. “ _You will not get rid of me so easily, Will Graham._ I love you.”

Will’s smile comes swift and bright; it breaks into a laugh before curling into a hum from that cracking, spilling heat inside his chest when their kiss wraps tightly together again. It shouldn’t be so easy, knowing what is coming, it shouldn’t be so carefree still and yet Will cannot help but be overcome by the love between them that as a flood, washes away the grime and gloom of the world outside their embrace. He tugs Hannibal’s hair to free his mouth, only to return it in another kiss, sucked slow and steady against Hannibal’s throat.

He measures Hannibal’s pulse, rising, and commits it to memory.

He tastes the salt of Hannibal’s skin, heating, and will remember that too.

He leaves behind a pale mark on Hannibal’s neck and traces a kiss over it before learning in turn the curve of his collarbone beneath his lips and the twitch of strong shoulders beneath his teeth. Thick hair tickling his nose and a dark little nipple that pebbles under his sigh. Will sets his fingers to the birthmark on Hannibal’s inner thigh, thumbing across it before peeling free what few clothes they wear and sitting back on his knees.

They will always have this, come what may. They will always have each other, here and now and young and beautiful, no matter what else becomes of their lives. Hannibal coils upward, belly tense as he bends from the bed, needy and sweet and smiling sleepy, and Will follows the contours of his body with both hands before hooking them beneath Hannibal’s knees and pressing upward, to taste the dark, trembling warmth between his legs.

Hannibal moans, pleased and low, and arches his neck and lets his eyes close. Will’s talented tongue works against him until Hannibal’s breath leaves him entirely and he can do little more than squirm, throat clicking as he attempts words of praise and worship and adoration.

He thinks of Anthony’s words, to love him, now, as though the hours ticking by are not drawing them closer to an unknown precipice. Life is an unknown precipice. The knowledge, though, that they will be together now, meeting it, thrills them both and fills their hearts; young and strong and determined to keep and claim what has been gifted them.

"Will -" Hannibal’s hands seek, drawing over Will’s cropped hair and to his jaw, feeling it work before Will turns his head and places a wet kiss to Hannibal’s palm. Long fingers curl, pressing to his jaw, and Will lifts his eyes, cheek against Hannibal’s hand.

He places a kiss to his thigh, the little mole there. He looks up the length of him, past stiffened cock and coarse hair, past taut stomach and wide chest, past curved lips and finally to meet Hannibal’s eyes, near-black beneath his long lashes.

“Promise you won’t worry for me,” Will murmurs. “You needn’t, dearest Hannibal, you needn’t because there is nothing that could stop me keeping you safe here so I can find you again.”

Hannibal laughs, breathless and warm, and strokes Will’s face again, legs trembling where Will holds him up, his cool breaths tickling Hannibal's damp skin.

" _I will finish my studies, come fall,_ " he promises. " _I will save lives as you protect them. We will be unstoppable, dear Will, at each other’s side always._ "

Another moan as Will sets Hannibal to the bed again and strokes him instead, his own body beautiful and pale for Hannibal to see and memorize. And he will remember, nothing will stop him from keeping Will alive and safe here, if he cannot do it out on the front. He reaches, skimming fingertips over warm skin, feeling muscle coil beneath as Will moves atop him.

" _I want to feel you for days,_ " Hannibal whispers.

Will kisses his words, his breath, his pulse itself drumming their bodies into rhythm together as Hannibal arches beneath him and Will slides a hand beneath. Chests pressed together, Hannibal wraps long legs around Will and presses his heels to his back. Spreading wide, shifting, constant movement that Will follows with his palms stroking across soft skin, Hannibal asks him again and Will rocks his hips forward.

Their voices twine together, high and low, sweetly unsteady. Will sets his brow to Hannibal’s and watches him, little kisses touching, as Hannibal’s body yields without strain to his own. He pulls Hannibal higher. Curling his thighs around Will, Hannibal sits atop his knees, held up by a hand at the back of his neck and one at the small of his back.

A languid twist of hips brings him taller still and Will watches him, reverent. His voice breaks when Hannibal lowers again, taking every inch of him deep into the holy dark of his body where no one will ever reach again.

Hannibal would wait a lifetime for it.

They make love slowly, Hannibal working himself up and down on Will as both of their hands explore and memorize the other 

" _No one. No one has ever made me feel like you do, Will. No one else ever will try to again._ " Hannibal traces Will’s lips with trembling fingers and follows the path with his lips next, draping heavy arms over Will’s shoulders. The bed squeaks its protest beneath them and Hannibal laughs, suddenly, warm and soft.

“We’ll get a new bed,” Will grins, letting his eyes slip closed as they kiss, before lying Hannibal back again to the bed. The only certainty in the world is here, held in every kiss, in every shift of movement that joins them, in ever gentle twist of fingers through hair. The only truth that matters is in their words, translated through their gaze when it meets.

“ _Let me feel you_ ,” Hannibal whispers.

“God,” whispers Will. “You feel like heaven, Hannibal.”

“ _Let me keep you this way_.”

“Spread a little more - your legs - there, just there -”

“ _I want to ache for you_.”

“Oh,” Will gasps, bucking sharp between Hannibal’s legs and watching wide-eyed as Hannibal bares his throat and keens encouragement. He bears down and Will sees stars, taking Hannibal hard, again and again, grasping the paint-flecked iron above his head. Sharp nails curve into his back, drawing parallel marks alongside his spine, and Will hisses then laughs, then grimaces again.

“Yes,” he finally sighs, when Hannibal relents, shifting his hips to thrust hard and bury himself. He swallows the curses as quickly as he can curl his tongue around Hannibal’s, before reaching back to keep Hannibal’s fingers bent against his skin. A quick nod, and they both laugh.

Physical memory for them to keep, when dawn brings the unknown and indefinite.

Marks to touch and know that although it has all felt like a dream, they were awake and alive in it together.

Will bends lower and sucks another bruise to Hannibal’s skin. Another. Another. Peppering him with kisses as Hannibal pants against him and Will takes him harder, deeper, until his every breath is a sweet little moan, and he drops his hands behind himself to curl with Will’s against the flaking headboard.

Hannibal comes first. Warm and slick between them, shaking and arched so Will can kiss adoration across his chest, feel his pulse beneath his lips. When Will comes, Hannibal wraps his limbs around him and rolls them to rest on their sides, nuzzling Will until the other grins and brings a hand to Hannibal’s face to soothe over his cheek.

“ _My beautiful boy_ ,” Hannibal sighs.

Even on a bed so small that one’s arms fall off the edges when outstretched, there is spare room beyond them. Bodies pressed so tightly they take up a singular space instead of two, Will kisses Hannibal and nods, smile flickering wider.

“ _Beau_ ,” Will says, and Hannibal’s eyes close as he grins, wide and crooked and perfect. “ _Beau oiseau_. My Hannibal.”

They whisper love against each other’s lips. They kiss, there and everywhere. They touch and they squeeze close and they breathe in unison as their hearts settle to a matching steady beat. They make love again, twice. And still Will refuses sleep, even as Hannibal softly succumbs, breath slowing long against Will’s chest. Still Will refuses to allow even a moment of this lost, and he finds it an easy battle to win, when every breath, every strand of hair, every little sleepy sound that Hannibal makes in trying to keep himself awake too is a wonder.

A rare gift, each and every.

Will speaks to him in endless murmurs, and Hannibal purrs rumbling words against him in return. They will not forget. They will not cease to be. What was created between them here is greater than anything else in the world and they will find each other.

They will.

They must.

As Hannibal rests, and the sun begins to purple the sky, Will slowly removes himself from beneath Hannibal’s arms. He must wash, quickly, and dress. Or lay back down, and let the sun rise, and stay. Throat tight, he swallows painfully and as he turns from the bed warm fingers curl around his wrist.

Hannibal makes a fussy sound and brings his free hand to his eyes to rub the sleep from them. 

“ _I’ll come with you,_ ” he says, pushing himself to sit up as well and follow Will to the bathroom. Will washes thoroughly, Hannibal does not, just a quick sponge bath in the sink before they both return to their room and Will starts to dress. Hannibal watches, amusement curling his lips as he slips into just his pants and settles back on his elbows while Will navigates his new clothes.

“I’ve gotten fat,” he complains, eyeing Hannibal with suspicion that only sharpens when he sees his cheeky grin. “You’ve been feeding me too much.”

Will stretches with a grimace as he pulls his jodhpurs up, hugging snug around his thighs, cupped beneath his bottom. His shirt and jacket, too, all pulled in around his waist. Still he dresses, fingers working buttons closed. Still he does not watch this transformation in Hannibal’s speckled mirror, but only Hannibal behind him, watching too.

It isn’t too late, and the thought breaks the steady rhythm of his dressing. Another hour, two, and the transport will leave with or without him. How beautifully those hours would pass here. Hide the uniform and change his hair, grow a moustache and learn French. Those first few hours and the ones after, when his companymen say he never returned. Those days of searching and the weeks that would follow, stretching into years. Those years of being sought and hunted, throughout all the expanse of the British Empire or by anyone who thinks they could profit from it.

A post at dawn, days or weeks or years from now, and a volley of rifle fire.

He pulls his shirt firm and turns towards Hannibal, mustering a pale smile.

“Well?” he asks, spanning his hands to either side.

Hannibal bites his lip. “ _Much better, now that it fits you_ ,” he says, tilting his head as Will turns and regards himself in the mirror next, blinking, confused, and drawing his palms down his chest to feel the snug fit. “ _I had to guess your size,_ ” Hannibal admits, “when I took it in.” He motions sewing in midair and laughs when Will turns wide eyes to him.

“You… you tailored my uniform?”

Hannibal just grins.

“Terrible,” Will tells him, scarcely able to keep down a smile. He can see it all so clearly - Hannibal holding pins in his mouth, murmuring fussy French at the stitches. Hannibal’s hands carefully shaping the uniform to fit snug against Will’s body from memory alone, seaming with steady fingertips. Himself, in his ridiculous way, sewn in thread.

He drags his boots closer to the bed but kneels first, catching Hannibal’s hands in his cheeks to bring him close and share a kiss. He tells him he’s terrible, again. He tells him he loves him. He tells him he’s a bird and Hannibal says something that makes Will laugh even though he doesn’t know what it is.

The worn leather squeaks aching as Will finally settles to put on his boots. He flicks away a bit of grey mud stuck to the side, with sudden distress that Hannibal’s absurd work on his uniform will soon enough be muddy too. It doesn’t seem right, and it isn’t fair, and all at once it hits like a clap of thunder and a summer storm, turning sunlit sky to roiling night. 

“Hannibal,” Will whispers, as he sets his hands to his thighs to hide their trembling. His voice is small. He isn’t brave. He is weak and he is afraid and he can hardly speak for it. “I don’t want to go, Hannibal.”

Hannibal slips to his knees before Will, settling between his legs and gently taking Will’s face in his hands, hushing him softly, kissing him and stroking his hair as Will wraps his arms around him and holds him close and trembles.

“ _My sweet Will,_ ” Hannibal whispers. “ _My darling boy, look how brave you are. Look how strong._ ” His heart aches and he doesn’t let it show, not to Will, not when he is shaking in his arms and considering desertion, desertion that would mean inevitable cruel death for him, and thus them both. He will not let it happen. He cannot.

“ _I will miss you. Every day and every hour,_ ” Hannibal promises him. “ _I will write, anywhere you tell me you are. I will find you again._ ” Hannibal swallows and recalls the words Anthony had repeated to him downstairs, patient and careful until Hannibal had gotten them right. “I will find you again, Will,” he tells him.

"Yes," Will whispers, eyes wide with wonder. He presses his hands over Hannibal's own, firmer against his cheeks, and chokes down a sound, faltering and frail, as Hannibal tells him again, again, as Will repeats the words to him, too, until Will shudders a breathless laugh that shakes as hard as he himself.

He recalls the first night and each moment after, in which he asked himself if he was going mad. But there is no greater reality than Hannibal's touch as it smoothes back his hair, no greater truth than their kiss held as long as both can. And when Hannibal rises and gives his hands to Will, it is his strength - theirs, of love and conviction - that gives Will his own to stand.

He will not stay. He will leave Hannibal to keep their home, and he will go and he will fight until the war is done. Every step down the stairs, he confirms what he knows is right, to serve his duty and to keep the front at bay, to ensure that Paris, this home, his Hannibal are safe and that the gas and guns never reach them.

And then.

And then.

There must be more, mustn't there? A quiet home in the English countryside. Beautiful debauchery in the cities of the continent.

Hannibal.

Anywhere, and for always.

Will lifts his eyes to him with a sharp breath when slender fingers set beneath his chin. A tender smile and a few soft words direct his attention to the pocket of his uniform, and Will seeks with a questioning sound. 

The sensation of silk stirs a sudden laugh, as Will frees a corner of the bright patterned scarf folded neatly within.

“ _I expect that back,_ ” Hannibal tells him softly, feigning a stern expression. “ _It is my favourite, and the one that looks the best on you. It is on loan only, and I would like it back when you return._ ”

Will laughs again and leans close to rest his weight against Hannibal a moment more. Another. Another. And then he takes up his bag.

“I’ll see you soon,” Will tells him, and Hannibal just swallows and nods, pulling a smile to his lips even when it pains him. He steps close and kisses Will’s forehead, his cheek, his lips and holds in a lingering kiss, deep and intimate. When he pulls back, he presses another chaste kiss to Will’s lips and strokes his hair.

“ _Be safe,_ ” Hannibal tells him.

Will looks at him a moment more. Every second enough to want to make him stay, to pull him into Hannibal’s arms and escape this stupid war. And yet he takes a step towards the door. Another. Another. And then it’s open and he’s on the street, and he’s sending Hannibal a salute through the door and turning to make his way down the hill.

Hannibal watches him go, he watches until Will melts into the mingling of the early morning and then he turns on his heel and jogs up the stairs. In his room, he gathers a duffel, throwing clothes into it, finding a pair of shoes he can walk in, his small medical bag, his coat.

“ _Hannibal_.”

“ _I’m going with him,_ ” Hannibal whispers, and Anthony steps closer.

“ _No, darling._ ”

“ _I’m going with him_!” Hannibal yells, and turning fierce to Anthony he finds his friend just watching him softly, his robe loose and his arms crossed, and bags under his eyes suggesting he had not slept either. “ _I have to,_ ” Hannibal whispers. “ _Anthony, I have to, I can’t leave him…_ ”

" _You needn't_ ," Anthony tells him. " _All you have to do is wait_."

" _That is death_ ," Hannibal hisses, lips bent across his teeth. " _I will volunteer, now, they would take me_."

" _Gladly, and then_?" Anthony asks, stepping closer despite the baleful look Hannibal gives him, every part of him pulled tight and trembling. " _The French army would happily take you and send you off to Belgium or Algiers or any number of places that aren't the British front_ ," Anthony tells him, gently, so gently that Hannibal wants to strike him for it. He stuffs the shirt wrinkled in his hand into the bag, and when Anthony's hand comes to rest against his back, he turns to bolt, caught and held fast in Anthony's arms instead.

" _And then you would not be here when he comes to find you_ ," Anthony whispers against his hair.

Hannibal struggles, a genuine thing, and Anthony holds strong, arms wrapped right around Hannibal’s middle, trapping his hands and holding him still. Curses are screamed, threats are made, and still Anthony doesn’t move, he doesn’t speak, he holds Hannibal until something snaps and Hannibal goes entirely limp against him, turning his head into Anthony’s neck and sobbing.

“ _I have never been more scared in my life,_ ” Hannibal admits, words mangled by tears. “ _I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do._ ”

Anthony lifts his chin, setting it atop Hannibal's head to cradle him closer still. The shuddering sobs wrack the bright young thing in his arms, an agony made physical. Slowly, Anthony turns with him, to sit them both on the bed and let Hannibal's shaking knees have relief.

" _Just as you did today_ ," Anthony murmurs. " _Love him. Long for him. Live when you can and when you cannot, weep and drink and exhaust your grief from you. But remain, so that when he returns_ -"

" _If_ ," Hannibal snarls, teeth gritting. Another push tightens Anthony's arms again but only for a moment, as the stormy high tide of his rage ebbs to helpless sobs.

" _When he returns_ ," Anthony corrects, gently, smoothing Hannibal's hair from his face, " _you will both laugh again, and feel as though no time at all has passed. He goes to fight for you, for this life you spoke of, both of you, silly things. Let him._ "

Hannibal tries to say more, to argue more, to plead, and finds that all he can do is cry, like a small child, held by his friend. Fingers card through his hair, lips press dry and soft against his temple as Anthony lets Hannibal weep against him. How long passes, neither know. Too long. Not long enough. But when Anthony shifts to lay Hannibal to bed, Hannibal goes, and does not fight when Anthony crawls in behind him and lays a heavy arm over his middle.

By mid morning, Hannibal is asleep, cheeks blotchy from crying, lips parted to breathe, and Anthony leaves him only long enough to make them coffee, to use the restroom and open the window to air the room out.

Then he returns to bed and presses his nose between Hannibal’s shoulders, and holds him as he continues to sleep.

To lie to a friend is something Anthony does not relish, ever - he reviles it. For now he consoles himself with the thought that he is not lying in bolstering Hannibal's hope; in truth Anthony knows no more than the rest of them as to whether or not the English soldier will ever set foot there again. To speak in certainty either way would be the lie, and so it seems no harm to give Hannibal the faith he needs.

There is always hope.

He will rail, and he will rage. He will weep until he is sick and then he will weep more still. They will drink together, and Anthony will stop him from going out into the night half-dressed to find him. They will smoke together, and Anthony will hold Hannibal when he shakes. Should Hannibal's heart hold out, the pain will soften but not fade. It will stretch long and become a part of Hannibal as a scar might, no longer a source of suffering but a reminder of its presence.

Beside the bed, among the wilted flowers and empty bottles, Anthony observes a little postcard. A painted scene of the English countryside, in pale watercolors, rolling hills and distant lakes and blossoms all in bloom. He will not clear away the flowers. He will not yet remove the bottles. But he reaches past his sleeping friend to bring the postcard a little nearer, in hopes that for a moment when he wakes, there is a breath of peace to think himself there already.

There is always hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is _always_ more.
> 
> Chronologically, the series now returns to the namesake of this saga, [Epistolary - 1921](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4718288). But beginning Sunday, we leave Paris in the past to return to England in 1922 and beyond. Chapters will continue to be posted every Sunday/Thursday ongoing, until we run out of story to tell.
> 
> We can't imagine that happening any time soon.


End file.
